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Over on the Smoking Section blog, Ben Harper tells the exclusive story about his new band, which he has dubbed Relentless7. The band is currently in the studio working on a new album, which they hope to get out early next year. “It’s absolute, unapologetic rock music,” says Harper. “It’s rock music from the places that you want rock to be from. There’s some Queen in there, and some Floyd-isms, and there’s a good dose of blues and soul.” Click below for more from Harper, including what has become of his former band the Innocent Criminals, and be sure to check out the rest of the behind-the-scenes rock news at the Smoking Section.

• Smoking Section Exclusive: Ben Harper’s New Band

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The Killers announced today that their new disc, Day & Age, will be released on November 25th and Smoking Section’s Austin Scaggs got a preview last week and chatted with frontman Brandon Flowers. “It’s like looking at Sam’s Town from Mars,” Flowers says (he also describes “Human” as “Johnny Cash meets the Pet Shop Boys”). Click below for the full Q&A and news of the band’s fall tour.

• Brandon Flowers Talks New Killers LP Day & Age

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We saw some killer shows in the last couple of weeks: The Radiohead and Kings of Leon sets at All Points West were brilliant; Wilco debuted a ridiculous new song at Lollapalooza while wearing rad Nudie suits; and Bob Dylan dazzled in Brooklyn. But sometimes we miss one. In this case it was the Bill Withers Tribute, part of the Celebrate Brooklyn series, which drew folks like Jim James (”Ain’t No Sunshine”), Nona Hendryx (”Lovely Day”) and others to pay tribute to the reclusive soul genius. And for the first time in decades, Withers himself stepped onstage, to sing “Grandma’s Hands.” When we reached Withers, he said he was drawn to the stage by legendary R&B guitarist Cornell Dupree. “I probably wouldn’t have bothered,” says the 70-year-old, the subject of an upcoming documentary. “I thought, ‘Let me go up there and hang out with Cornell for a minute.’” Ear-witness reports say Withers’ voice was glorious, but don’t expect to see him again. “This is not the age for showing off,” he says. “I’m just some old guy in the checkout line at the Home Depot. Which is fine with me.”

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Sweet vindication! Last year in this column, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson promised that they’d tour in 2008. Well, he wasn’t kidding. Soon they’ll begin rehearsals in a secret location, before hitting U.S. arenas in late fall. We heard this news at the Sony HQ on New York’s Madison Avenue, before hearing all 15 tracks of the band’s earthshaking new Black Ice, recorded in Vancouver in just eight weeks with Brendan O’Brien. On it, Brian wails about skies on fire, blood in his eyes, storms raging, lightning flashes, hard rain and pretty women. Angus Young shreds throughout (we dig his slide work on “Decibel”), and the rhythm cats — Malcom Young, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd — are solid as a rock. The first single is “Rock ‘N Roll Train”; “She Likes Rock ‘N Roll” will be a stripper anthem; and “War Machine” (our favorite) will tear you to pieces.

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In Chronicles Vol. 1, Bob Dylan tells about a trip to Princeton, New Jersey, where, accompanied by his “obstreperous” buddy David Crosby, he received an honorary degree. The ceremony was a bummer — (more…)

“The Rat,” released by the Walkmen in 2004, is one of the greatest songs of this century. So the S.S. was stoked to get an early listen to their killer upcoming disc, You & Me, which has an equally awesome banger, “In the New Year.” The Walkmen recorded You & Me over two years at home in New York, and also in New Jersey, Philly and Mississippi. “It’s always exciting to come up with a big rocker that just works,” singer Hamilton Leithauser says about “New Year,” “because we don’t even like playing rock that much. That could be the problem: We spend so many hours playing slow waltzes.” Other You & Me cuts (”Canadian Girl,” “Red Moon”) will sound amazing live when the band storms through the U.S. in August and September. “It took everything we had to finish the record,” the singer says. “But we’re really happy with it.” We asked Leithauser for the skinny behind “The Rat.” “We were just screwin’ around,” he says. Drummer Matt Barrick kicked off a breakneck groove, and the boys joined in. “We threw some chords on it, I wrote the words in five minutes, and then we all started slammin’!”

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Ah, so many sexy Bonnaroo memories from ‘08! Let’s start off with a bang, specifically the Royal Bangs, our new favorite rockers, whose late-night set featured tracks from the Knoxville quintet’s awesome new album, We Breed Champions. We got a thrill meeting guitar magicians Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton, who were key members of Bob Dylan’s greatest post-Rolling Thunder band from 1999 to 2002. Sexton played with up-and-comer Matt Morris (a singer-songwriter on Justin Timberlake’s Tennman Records), and Campbell tore shit up with Levon Helm. And we’ve rapped with Ed Vedder before, but it was rad to chat up Michael McCready, who told us that Pearl Jam are crackin’ away on a new disc, to be produced by Brendan O’Brien. PJ bassist Jeff Ament updated us on his reunion with Green River at Sub Pop’s 20th-anniversary party in July. “We had a couple of practices two months ago, and it was the first time Stone [Gossard] and I had been in a room with those guys in 25 years or so,” Ament says. “It was like, ‘Yeah, we’re grunge!” Ament also informed us about an upcoming battle of the bands, on the basketball court. “‘Jeff, you better bring your A game, Gramps, ’cause the Jacket’s gonna be ballin’ on y’all,’” Ament read from an e-mail he’d received from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.” ‘We’re gonna put the hurt on you, dawg!’” The showdown was supposed to take place at last year’s Lollapalooza, but the Jacket backed out. “We couldn’t make it,” says James. Why not? “Um, we had to rehearse with an orchestra.”

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There aren’t many characters left in the music biz like Cajun soul great Bobby Charles — the man who wrote “Walking to New Orleans” for Fats Domino, was the first white artist signed to Chess Records, performed at The Last Waltz and, in 1972, released a stunning solo album (buy it on iTunes immediately). The reclusive 70-year-old, who lives a quiet life in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, will soon release Homemade Songs, 15 swampy soulful tracks, featuring pals like Dr. John and Spooner Oldham. Charles’ songwriting takes center stage. “I played the song ‘Cowboys and Indians’ for Fats while he was in the bathroom, takin’ a shit, a shower and a shave,” says Charles. “When he came out, he says, ‘Bobby, now that’s a gospel song!’ ” If you’re not convinced, listen to Bob Dylan. “He was more successful as a songwriter than a singer,” writes Dylan in the album’s liner notes. “And it’s a sin ’cause he’s a hell of a singer. He’s got one of the most melodious voices ever transferred to vinyl. The boy could sing like a bird — he still does.”

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The Donaldson Correctional Facility houses 1,500 of Alabama’s most vicious criminals. In 2002, fed up with their crappy rehab programs, administrators allowed 36 prisoners to take an intense Vipassana meditation course, involving 10 days of complete silence and soul-searching. The remarkable results are captured in the doc The Dhamma Brothers, financed in part by
Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, whose life was changed by Vipassana. “What struck me was how similar my experience is in the meditation course to how it is for these criminals serving life sentences,” says Cuomo. “A few years ago, I might have felt a tremendous fear, and now I can walk into things feeling perfectly peaceful.” He relates to a statement in the movie by a convicted murderer named Grady Bankhead. “He said, ‘I’ve been on death row for eight years, and this 10-day course was harder,’” says Cuomo. “I can relate to that.”

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• Click here for song picks from upcoming Black Keys collaborations in a special Smoking Section Exclusive

If you worship the Black Keys as much as we do — and you agree that Attack & Release is the best album of ‘08 so far — you should be stoked to know that drummer Patrick Carney and singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach have put their fingerprints on a slew of upcoming albums. Carney is producing fellow Akronites Houseguest, Knoxville’s Royal Bangs (”they’re kind of the shit”) and another Ohio band called Beaten Awake. “Those guys are, like, 33, but they live like they’re still 18,” says Carney, “which is acceptable as long as you don’t have a kid.” Meanwhile, Auerbach is readying records by Buffalo Killers (rockers from Cincinnati), Hacienda (”Mexican-Americans who are obsessed with the Beach Boys”), the low-fi Southern duo Black Diamond Heavies and youngster Jessica Lea Mayfield (”superdark and gloomy — what I like”). In summary, Carney says, “We’re just puttin’ out records, flushing money down the toilet. Unless these bands agree to wear the neon-green outfits I pick out for them, they’ll never be popular.”

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Rod Stewart is as obsessed as we are with the Black Keys, and the S.S. has slowly but steadily been trying to hook up the duo with the Mod so that they make some sweet music together. (more…)

The Smoking Section headed to the Beastie Boys‘ studio in Lower Manhattan, where we were shown Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot, a new doc produced and directed by Adam Yauch, that follows the lives of 24 elite high school basketball players on their way to an MVP game at Harlem’s Rucker Park, the street-ball mecca, in ‘06. “My friend asked me to be a coach, which I don’t know how to do, but then he started asking me how to document the game,” says Yauch, who’s been ballin’ recently, after a torn ACL sidelined him. “I thought, ‘I should do this.’” To the sounds of vintage hip-hop and soul, Gunnin’ delves into the lives of current NCAA stars such as UCLA’s Kevin Love (nephew of Beach Boy Mike Love), and up-and-coming players like Brandon Jennings and Tyreke Evans. “It’s powerful stuff,” says Yauch, and we agree. He also reveals that the B-Boys are “40 percent” finished with a new disc. “It’ll be a mix of things,” he says. “We’ll play on it, and there’ll definitely be some hip-hop.” (Read more and hear music from the Smoking Section’s favorite new artists…)

The Smoking Section got a surprise call from Queen guitarist Brian May, who phoned with cool news about his exciting new project: In September, Queen (with singer Paul Rodgers) will release their first new album in thirteen years, tentatively titled The Cosmos Rocks. Queen’s new chapter began in 2005, when May and drummer Roger Taylor teamed up with Rodgers (Bad Company and Free) for a joyously received global tour. “It was clear that if we were to go out again, we needed some new stuff,” says May. “It needed to be an ongoing, living, evolving, organic unit. This album has done that.” So, coinciding with Cosmos’ release, Queen and Rodgers will hit the road again. (Euro dates sold out in minutes — look out for U.S. dates next spring.) “It’s wonderful to know that people want to hear us out there,” says May. “It’s been a real voyage of discovery.” He adds that Freddie Mercury’s spirit lives on: “I often think of Freddie smiling — I think he’s enjoying it.”

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Not only will Steely Dan tour again this summer, highlighted by another string of intimate gigs at New York’s Beacon Theatre, but Walter Becker will release Circus Money, the long-awaited follow-up to his amazing album from ‘94, 11 Tracks of Whack. “I’ve been listening to a lot of Jamaican music from the Sixties and Seventies, so that was the jumping-off point,” Becker tells the Smoking Section. “Everything from Lee Perry to the Wailers, ‘Style’ Scott, Sly and Robbie, ‘Flabba’ Holt. Those rhythm sections are the ultimate, and I’m a rhythm guy.” Becker lays down some mean bass lines (backed by a crack band of Steely vets) on rock-steady tracks, and busts out awesome phrases such as “lachrymose musings,” “puke-streaked tunic” and “Kundalini now!” He even name-drops “muscatel,” a sweet, fortified wine on the track “Darkling Down.” “I remember using muscatel in the Sixties,” says Becker. “For a headache that I didn’t have yet.” (more…)

“In the early Seventies, we were the only long-haired country band on that side of the country,” says Tom Petty, who has re-formed his old Gainesville, Florida, band Mudcrutch, once the house band at Dub’s bar who released a 45 (”Depot Street”) in 1975 before they morphed into the Heartbreakers. Petty was kind enough to let the S.S. in on their plans for a late-April minitour in California. The swing, coinciding with the release of their first album (out April 29th), will hit San Francisco’s Fillmore, L.A.’s Troubadour and Ventura’s Majestic Theater. The sets will definitely not include cuts from the Heartbreakers’ gold mine, but Petty promises new tunes, jams and covers. “It has a country-rock feel, but with an edge,” says Petty, who will play bass, like he used to. “We’re actually a lot better than we were then.” Good luck getting a ticket!

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Six years ago, Minnesota songwriter Mason Jennings played a show at a local college. “I was walking off the stage, and this dude was standing there and was like, ‘Hey, man, keep playing, play some encores,’” says Jennings. That dude happened to be Jack Johnson. (more…)

“Haven’t there been moments over the last few years when you asked yourself, ‘Am I seeing things?’ ” says Jakob Dylan, explaining to the Smoking Section the title of his first solo album, Seeing Things. While his Wallflowers have been on hiatus, Dylan spent 2007 visiting Rick Rubin’s studio, where he laid down minimalist acoustic tracks that deal with the darkness of these times — “Evil Is Alive and Well” and “All Day and All Night” — and more contented tunes like “Something Good This Way Comes.” “This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I couldn’t be happier,” says Dylan. “It had nothing to do with clocking in or clocking out and setting up pinball machines and hiring a secretary. Rick provided the environment and offered incredibly useful judgment about where the songs were headed. It’s intangible, but Rick is right more than anybody I’ve ever worked with.” (more…)

Two days before he took home three Grammys, including Producer of the Year, Mark Ronson nailed what makes the awards show so boring. “They don’t serve booze in the Staples Center,” he explained from a couch in L.A.’s Roosevelt Hotel, sipping vodka. “At those awards things in Europe, they encourage you to get tanked.” Exactly! But at least the stars have those Grammy parties to get lubed up. Ronson threw a bash of his own, featuring hot protégés like Washington, D.C., rapper Wale and Brooklyn’s Santogold. While Ronson shook up the world last year with his throwback Motown sound, 2008 will see him parlay his love for the Band and Traffic, beginning with an album by Australian soul singer Daniel Merriweather. He also told us he was taking a page from Justin Timberlake’s book: being a nice boy and taking his mom to the Grammys. “I could get caught in a hotel room with Gary Coleman, four hookers and an ounce of blow,” he said, “but since I brought my mom . . . ” Touché! (more…)