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Hayley Williams Talks With Rolling Stone

Hayley Williams
Jason Tate

Hayley Williams of Paramore talked with Rolling Stone:

Making This Is Why was not a comfortable experience for any of us. There was already anxiety about getting back in the groove of creating stuff together after some time apart. We were hanging out plenty, but we weren’t making things. Zac was doing Half Noise and I made a couple projects, one with Taylor which Zac played on. Being like, “Okay, we’re gonna go for Paramore,” that was anxiety inducing. And then also the world was still scary and nothing ever feels certain anymore, really. 

I felt a lot of anxiety about being around people again, that weren’t just in my bubble. And knowing that on the other side of finishing the record I was going to enter the world again was really scary. Not because I thought, “I’m gonna catch COVID.” I didn’t get COVID until we started touring again. It was more about what that did to me in my mind. Part of me had gotten really used to just seeing the people that I know, personally, and that I have all this context for — my family, my bandmates, whatever. And now I have to go be around all sorts of people. People that probably don’t feel the same way, or we don’t align politically. I just don’t know how I’m gonna feel. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like. I don’t know if people are gonna like this version of me and/or Paramore. 

Jann Wenner Removed From Hall of Fame Board of Directors

Hall of Fame
Jason Tate

Pitchfork:

Jann Wenner has been removed from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s Board of Directors, a representative for the Hall of Fame confirmed to Pitchfork. The Rolling Stone founder has faced criticism for comments he made about Black and female musicians in an interview published yesterday in The New York Times, wherein he also admitted to letting interview subjects edit their own transcripts while at Rolling Stone.

Pay-for-Play Was Banned From Radio — But Texts Reveal It May Still Be Thriving

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Elias Leight, writing at Rolling Stone:

In June 2019, Mitch Mills, a senior vice president of radio promotion at Elektra Records, sent an urgent text to Steve Zap, an independent radio promoter who works with a number of stations in the adult contemporary format. The pair are both longtime players in the music industry, and have texted each other periodically about Warner Music Group acts, including Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots, and Fitz and the Tantrums. The June 2019 text shows that Mills was worried because Panic! at the Disco were receiving fewer plays than they had the previous week on a station Zap oversaw. “Stevie … [down] 11 in panic,” Mills wrote. “I just did a 2k deal with you … I need Panic back up.”

The text is one of more than 2,500 messages involving Zap that have been obtained by Rolling Stone. A number of these texts, covering 2018 to July of this year, refer to conversations with major label executives about promotional giveaways and payments to a radio station in connection with airplay – practices that have supposedly been banned.

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Rolling Stone to Launch Its Own Music Charts in Challenge to Billboard

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Henry Chu, writing at Variety:

The new “Rolling Stone Charts” will encompass the top 100 singles and the top 200 albums in the U.S.. the singles chart will be updated daily instead of weekly. The lists are also expected to incorporate more information on streaming and offer more transparency about how the rankings are derived. Rolling Stone, which is owned by Penske Media Corp. (which also owns Variety), is hoping that those innovations will help it muscle onto turf that Billboard has ruled for decades.

They start next Monday.

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Rolling Stone Publisher Sells Majority Stake to Penske

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Sydney Ember, writing for The New York Times:

Penske Media Corporation has acquired a controlling stake in Wenner Media, the publisher of the famed Rolling Stone magazine, the companies announced on Wednesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the investment values Wenner Media at roughly $100 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. BandLab Technologies, a Singapore-based music technology company, will retain a 49-percent stake in Rolling Stone that it acquired last year.

Rolling Stone to Be Put Up for Sale

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

The New York Times:

And so, after a half-century reign that propelled him into the realm of the rock stars and celebrities who graced his covers, Mr. Wenner is putting his company’s controlling stake in Rolling Stone up for sale, relinquishing his hold on a publication he has led since its founding.

Mr. Wenner had long tried to remain an independent publisher in a business favoring size and breadth. But he acknowledged in an interview last week that the magazine he had nurtured would face a difficult, uncertain future on its own.

Entercom Teams Up With Musicians for Suicide Prevention Campaign

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Jon Blistein, writing for Rolling Stone:

Metallica, Logic, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and pop singer Halsey are among the various musicians set to participate in a new mental health awareness and suicide prevention campaign, “I’m Listening.” The broadcast company Entercom organized the initiative, which will include a two-hour radio special airing live from Seattle on World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10th, at 10 a.m. ET on all Entercom platforms. […]

Other musicians set to participate include Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, Alice in Chains’ William DuVall, Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, Khalid, Disturbed’s David Draiman, country star Gary Allan and Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel. Seattle-based radio DJ, BJ Shea of KISW FM, will host the show.

Rolling Stone Found Liable in Suit Arising From Retracted Rape Story

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Tyler Kingkade, writing for Buzzfeed:

A jury in federal court ruled Friday that Rolling Stone and one of its reporters defamed a University of Virginia administrator in an article about campus rape.

Nicole Eramo sued Rolling Stone, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Wenner Media over a November 2014 article about sexual assault at the University of Virginia and statements the reporter made promoting the article. Eramo was a dean in charge of handling sexual assault reports at the university, and argued that she was unfairly cast as the “chief villain” in a story that purported to suggest administrators like her tried to keep rape cases under wraps.

Wenner to Sell 49% of Rolling Stone to Singapore’s BandLab

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Jan Wenner has sold a 49% stake of Rolling Stone to Bandlab Technlogies. Bloomberg reports:

After a five-decade run full of interviews with pop stars and presidents, the founder of Rolling Stone is selling 49 percent of the iconic magazine to an Asian billionaire’s son. It’s the first time Wenner has admitted an outside investor, a deal that encapsulates the plight of an industry fighting to stay relevant in an online age. Wenner Media LLC also owns Us Weekly and Men’s Journal.

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