The full lineup for the Billboard U.K. Live takeover at The Great Escape happening May 13-16 in Brighton, England, has been unveiled.

It was confirmed on Feb. 3 that rising rockers Keo will headline The Deep End venue on May 14 as part of the Billboard U.K. Live experience, marking a major moment in the band’s ascent.  Now, a fresh wave of names has been added to the bill. Bella Kay, Madra Salach, Adult DVD, Bleech 9:3, Slag and Dolder are all lined up to play, with the event set to spotlight the next generation of indie and alternative talent. 

Kay, who is 20, is currently on a hot streak, as stirring acoustic track “iloveitiloveitiloveit” reaches a new No. 17 high on the Billboard Hot 100 on the cart dated April 11. The viral hit is currently at No. 2 on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart, and has held strong in the top 10 since the start of March.

Madra Salach, meanwhile, recently wrapped up a headline tour of the U.K. and Ireland, which was entirely sold out. The contemporary folk six-piece is gearing up to release more music later this year.

The group will be joined by fellow Irish act Bleech 9:3, who has previously toured with Keo and drip-fed released a handful of singles this year, including the fan favorite “Ceiling.” Adult DVD is on a similar upward trajectory, having stormed U.K. festivals last summer, while indie outfits Slag and Dolder will perform at The Great Escape for the first time in May.

The Deep End venue is part of The Great Escape’s beach site located on Madeira Drive. Fans can gain access to the show via a TGE wristband subject to the venue’s capacity.

Brighton hosts The Great Escape each May, turning the seaside city into a hub for discovering new music. The festival highlights breakthrough acts from the U.K. and Ireland, alongside other emerging artists from around the world. Across four days, live performances take place in numerous independent venues across the city, accompanied by panels and networking events.

Tickets can be purchased via the festival’s official website, including passes for this year’s spotlight shows with The Kooks, Peaches and Kingfishr. 

Among this year’s performers are The Lottery Winners, Lime Garden, The Orchestra (For Now), Little Grandad, Natalie Wildgoose and Lonnie Gunn. Over the years, the festival has also served as an early platform for artists such as Charli xcx, The Last Dinner Party, Fontaines D.C., Sam Fender and Lola Young.

As the band wings out a new Legendary Edition of its self-titled debut album, Joe Perry is hoping the train will still keep a-rollin’ for Aerosmith. He’s just not sure where it might lead.

“The band is still kind of definitely not in touring mode, but there are certainly other options, so we stay in touch,” the guitarist tells Billboard from his home in Florida, noting that he talks most with frontman Steven Tyler, “my brother from another mother,” with whom he remixed 1973’s Aerosmith album for the reissue. It was a vocal cord injury and a fractured larynx Tyler suffered just three shows during Aerosmith’s 2023 farewell run that led to its cancellation and the band’s announced retirement from touring.

Perry and Tyler have since recorded an Aerosmith EP with Yungblud — last November’s One More Time, which hit No. 9 on the Billboard 200  — while Tyler has made periodic singing appearances, including at the annual Grammy Awards benefits for his Janie’s Fund and at last summer’s Back to the Beginning farewell concert for Black Sabbath and the late Ozzy Osbourne. Perry, meanwhile, has been out with his Joe Perry Project and will make a summer swing in Europe with all-star Hollywood Vampires, while bassist Tom Hamilton has started another band, Close Enemies, which released its debut album last month.

“You just never know,” Perry says about future Aerosmith activities. “It’s just been in the last six months that Steven’s started to get comfortable with singing; he literally had to take a year off before he was able to start stretching his vocal cords, and you’re always worried about reinjuring it. I learned a long time ago that everything we do is fragile… so we just take it day by day. You hope for the best. You just have to have the confidence and have that vision of positive in front of you. You can’t do it unless you envision it.”

Getting Their Wings

Perry was happy to have a look in the rearview for Aerosmith (Legendary Edition), which came out March 20. He and Tyler oversaw a remix from the original tapes with project co-producers Zakk Cervini and Steve Berkowitz, creating a deluxe set that includes the original and remastered albums, plus a March 20, 1973 show at Boston’s Paul Mall that was broadcast on WBCN. A selection of outtakes that includes a pre-Get Your Wings rendition of the Yardbirds’ “Train Kept A Rollin’” and an instrumental “Joined At the Hip (Aerojam)” that features elements that would become part of “Sweet Emotion” two years later on Aerosmith’s third album, Toys in the Attic.

“I was like, ‘Do we need to do this?’,” Perry reveals, “because we’d put out remastered (versions of the album) before, and I never really noticed all that much difference. But this was different; going in and actually getting to listen to the multi-tracks… it was great to hear it on modern equipment. When everything was translated down to the vinyl (in 1973) it didn’t sound the same as when you’re standing in the room with the band. But these remixes sound like that to me. It’s the same record, the same performances, but it opens it up.”

Specifically, he adds, “We never liked the way the drums sounded on that first album. Now it’s like, ‘Holy shit, this is what it sounded like when we were first recording. So I think it’s definitely worth it. And the old one isn’t going anywhere. It’s still there.”

Perry says the immersion “brought back a lot of memories” to recording the Aerosmith album during October of 1972 with producer Adrian Barber at Intermedia studio in Boston. “We were trying to find our place… what our goals were, what our options were,” he recalls. “We were learning how to write together and play together. We were listening to all of the incredible second wave English bands; there wasn’t much going on in America at the time, for our ears. All the power was coming from the English bands, so we were drawing on that.

“Considering everything, I think that the record pretty much does what it’s supposed to do. I can remember putting the (headphones) on and listening to the first song, and I took ’em off and I shook my head. When you’re in the middle of it you do it piece-by-piece. Then when you start to hear it finished, it’s like…’Holy shit! I’m glad we did this.”

Aerosmith was, of course, the home of “Dream On,” which was released as a single in June of 1973 and reached No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, eventually growing into a rock radio staple that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.

Not bad for a song that wasn’t Perry’s favorite at the time.

“If it didn’t rock out I didn’t have any use for it in general,” he confesses. “I always like the ‘Train Kept A-Rollin” and the upbeat, the energy, the excitement. To me, ballads were just kind of, ‘Eh, time to take a break.’ But there’s something about it. Steven was working on it from the day I met him, and it just grew on us. Now I still love playing it, ’cause I see what it does to the fans. It really stands the test of time.”

More Where That Came From

Perry hopes to take the Legendary Edition approach to more of Aerosmith’s albums and already has his sights set on what’s next.

“I think Toys is the next one, ’cause on that one we were definitely getting our studio legs together,” he says of Aerosmith’s third album, a breakthrough that reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200, has been certified nine-times platinum and gave the band its first top 40 hit with “Sweet Emotion.” “It was definitely a state of mind and we were learning, I was learning everything I could about the recording part of it, like, ‘How come this know does that?’ and that kind of thing. I read about Jimmy Page; at 19 he was one of the most sought-after studio musicians, and he knew what he was doing when he went in to do (Led) Zeppelin. I, on the other hand, just know you put a mic in front of the amp and prayed.

“So Toys is when we started to become recording artists, I think, started to learn how to do that. We wrote some of those songs on the spot, and we were touring all the time, so the band was playing great and finding our own slot.”

The “Joined At the Hip (Aerojam)” outtake, meanwhile, gives fans a listen to both the gestation of “Sweet Emotion” as well as Aerosmith’s creative process in general. “We were pretty much on the road all the time; if we weren’t gigging we were looking for gigs,” Perry says. “When it came time for another record we would slot a month and go into the studio and we’d have maybe two or three songs finished and a batch of riffs we could play, and we would right in the studio. That riff of Tom’s we played it and we jammed on it, and it turned into ‘Sweet Emotion.’ That’s how most of those songs came out in the ’70s.”

Walking His Way

Perry acknowledges that having Aerosmith off the road has opened up space for his other musical adventures. “My solo stuff, I’ve always done it around Aerosmith,” he explains. “I’d put a record out, play one (solo) gig, then be on the road with Aerosmith for six months. So (his albums) never got the kind of push I think they could have. So it feels really good to not have to think about packing my bags tomorrow; I lived like that since I was 15.”

Perry is mulling some sort of compilation of his solo work. “I myself would like to hear 15, 18 of my favorites of my songs, all in one place,” he says. His Joe Perry Project last played dates during the fall of 2025 in conjunction whit his Sweetzerland Manifesto MK II album. Now, however, he, Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Tommy Henriksen are gearing up for the Hollywood Vampires tour, which kicks off Aug. 12 in London, with 19 U.K. and European shows through Sept. 12.

“It’s been awhile since we last toured (2023),” Perry says, “so I think that the set’s going to be maybe two-thirds some of the same songs we played last time, and some new ones.” The Vampires last studio album, Rise, came out during 2019. “It’s more about the vibe, and to just get a kick out of playing together. I’m just hoping we can get a run in the States after this European one.

“So that’s really what’s on the board for me. I know nothing’s going to happen between now and the Vampires tour, but I know next year is wide open, so… we’ll see.”

Dua Lipa loves herself a good cocktail — and some Britney Spears. Dua turned into an expert mixologist for the day as part of Vogue‘s Toast to Cinema series, which saw the pop star pairing her favorite songs with various drinks made from scratch.

The “Levitating” artist crafted a Basil Smash inspired by Spears’ 2003 Grammy-winning anthem “Toxic,” which Dua crowned as “one of the greatest pop songs ever made.”

“You’re very silly and giggly and fun and I need to hear ‘Toxic’ at the end of every single night when I’m feeling like that. It’s one of my favorite songs,” she gushed. “I think it’s one of the greatest pop songs ever made. It makes me feel nostalgic, but also at the same time, if it came out yesterday, it would be an absolute smash. I love it so much.”

Dua recalled the “Toxic” music video, which saw Britney dressed as a flight attendant. “The bit that stays in my mind that I remember so well is Britney in a stewardess outfit, and I don’t think anyone has been able to make a stewardess outfit look so good,” she added.

The Future Nostalgia singer continued to gush about her appreciation for Britney. “I love Britney so much,” she raved. “I love everything about her, all her songs. She’s such an icon.”

Back in December, Spears co-signed Dua with a post to Instagram of the British pop star’s “Houdini” cover art. “PRETTY NICE RIGHT,” she wrote about Dua’s Radical Optimism lead single, which topped the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.

“Toxic” served as Spears’ second single from her 2003 album In the Zone. The Bloodshy & Avant-produced track reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Spears her first and only Grammy victory to date in the best dance recording category in 2005.

Dua came to Spears’ defense regarding the harsh media and paparazzi’s treatment of the pop star in the 2000s during a 2021 profile with the Los Angeles Times.

“The feeling of going down the street and they’re trying to catch you in this very awkward picture — it can be anxiety-inducing, honestly,” she said. “And Britney’s time was pre-Instagram when everything was purely about the tabloids, and there were no laws in place about what paparazzi were allowed to do. She was being harassed — that’s exactly what it was.”

More recently, earlier in April, eagle-eyed fans noticed that Dua appears to have a famed paparazzi photo of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan driving with Paris Hilton from the 2000s on the back of her iPhone.

Following her arrest on suspicion of DUI in March, a rep for Spears confirmed on April 12 that the 44-year-old voluntarily checked herself into a treatment facility, but did not provide any further details or reasoning.

Watch the full video of Dua Lipa with Vogue below. (Talk about Spears takes place around the nine-minute mark.)

The sun is out and she’s feeling good as hell.

It’s not technically summer just yet, but Lizzo is embracing the warm season vibes. The two-time Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper shared a new series of bikini photos to Instagram with a cute caption letting fans know what to expect of her summertime antics.

“Yall gettin the whole stomach out all summer,” Lizzo wrote.

Lizzo has already embarked on what’s going to certainly be a summer of fun. The singer/rapper just made the most of Coachella weekend 1. On the first night of the festival, Lizzo surprised fans by joining Sexyy Red onstage with her flute. The “About Damn Time” singer performed her freestyle “Yitty On Yo Tittys” before twerking on a giant Labubu doll. In a follow-up Instagram post thanking Sexyy for having her, Lizzo called the festival “hoechella” and said that it was just getting started.

After her “hoechella” showcase, Lizzo joined Paris Hilton at her Parívie Oasis, a private event put on by Hilton’s skincare brand on Saturday. According to a series of posts to her Instagram, after Lizzo partied with the “Stars Are Blind” singer, she made sure to watch rock legends The Strokes take the Coachella main stage on Saturday night before catching Justin Bieber’s headlining performance. Following an epic Coachella day 2, Lizzo took to Instagram on Sunday to share all of her antics as well as a heartfelt message to Bieber for an incredible performance.

“I watched a popstar who grew up in front of the world fully transcend into his artistry last night,” Lizzo wrote in her caption, sharing she had no pictures or videos from Bieber’s performance because she was “fully present in the moment.”

With the festival behind her, Lizzo declared herself Queen of Coachella in another Instagram post shared on Sunday. If the upcoming months continue in this fashion for Lizzo, she may become the queen of summer too.

It may have taken nine nominations for Luther Vandross to finally win his first Grammy in 1991 for best male R&B vocal performance (“Here and Now”). But it only took the late singer/songwriter/producer one nomination to be selected for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026.

So how might Vandross react upon hearing the news about his upcoming induction? David Gottlieb, manager of the Luther Vandross Estate, believes he would have responded in one of two ways.

“The first would be very similar to when he won his first Grammy,” says Gottlieb. “You’d see Luther’s smiling face and then hear him singing a line from a song. Maybe ‘So Amazing’ or maybe he’d be riffing on ‘Bad Boy/Having a Party.’” When he accepted his Grammy at the 1991 ceremony, Vandross sang a snippet from “Here and Now” to a standing ovation.

“Or,” Gottlieb continues with a laugh, “he might just say with that same smile, ‘It’s about that time, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.’”

Vandross — whose catalog of classics includes “Never Too Much,” “Any Love” and “If This World Were Mine,” his duet with Cheryl Lynn — initially became eligible for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame contention in 2006. When the ceremony takes place Nov. 14 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Vandross, who died in 2005, will join a diverse array of 2026 inductees including Phil Collins, Sade, Oasis, Wu-Tang Clan. Honorees in the early influence award circle are Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Celia Cruz and Fela Kuti.

Gottlieb says the Vandross family is “beyond words” about the Hall of Fame honor. “The family was very excited seven weeks ago when he was nominated. And they’ve been on pins and needles waiting to see what the results were. They’re over the moon.”

As for his own reaction, Gottlieb notes, “It’s very easy to say this is overdue. But the reality is that sometimes it takes the audience and the gatekeepers a minute to catch up. And now it’s happened between a documentary [2024’s Luther: Never Too Much], a Grammy Museum exhibit, the Grammy Hall of Fame Award [2025] and Kendrick Lamar [the Grammy-winning “Luther” with SZA].

“It all kind of made this the moment that people reawakened to what Luther had to offer,” Gottlieb adds. “He sang about one thing, and that was love. And the world needs that right now.”

Joey Fatone once had to say “bye bye bye” to his electricity.

In a sneak peek of the next episode of ID’s new docuseries Boy Band Confidential, Fatone opened up about his financial situation after *NSYNC went on hiatus in 2002. The former boy bander, who also executive produces the show, revealed that he bought a 4-acre property with a 10,000-square-foot house during the group’s prime. Then, after the group disbanded, he nearly went bankrupt.

“Money was coming in. I asked my accountant, ‘Hey, are we good?’ ‘Yeah, we’re great,’” Fatone starts in the preview of the show. “He goes, ‘Your kids’ kids’ kids will be fine.’ Now, he was saying that as if money was probably still coming in.”

Unfortunately for Fatone, the cash flow stopped and he was left with his finances in shambles.

“You go 10 years later after that conversation, and when I go to a new accountant, I say, ‘Hey, man, can you look at my finances and what’s going on?’” Fatone continues. “And he goes, ‘You need to get out of that house or you’re gonna go bankrupt.’”

Fatone reveals that most people didn’t know that he was going through financial hardships. Then it all came to a head when his holiday celebrations suddenly got interrupted.

“This is where the low part was happening for me. There was one point during Christmas, they shut off the lights to my house ’cause I didn’t pay the bill,” Fatone admits, saying he was nearing bankruptcy and scared that the general public would find out.

“These are certain things that happen in normal people’s lives as well,” he says, also mentioning that he was married with two kids at the time. “But then, you have to figure out, for me, ‘How do I do this without the public even watching what’s going on?’”

At the end of the clip, Fatone shared that he reached out to people around him for financial assistance to no avail. “I was asking people for money. And funny enough, the people that I asked that mostly had the most money in life, they were like, ‘Can’t help you.’”

Boy Band Confidential takes a look at the boy band machine of the ’90s. Through interviews with *NSYNC’s Lance Bass, Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean and Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman, the four-part docuseries exposes what life was truly like for boy band stars at the peak of their success and its aftermath. Boy Band Confidential began airing on Monday and will conclude on Tuesday night (April 14) at 9 p.m PT on ID. The four episodes will also be available to stream on HBO Max.

Watch the sneak peek below.

Lena Dunham looks back on her past relationship with long-term boyfriend Jack Antonoff in new memoir Famesick, including a low point that she says stemmed in part from his work with a “teen pop star.”

In the book published Tuesday (April 14), the Girls creator — who dated the Bleachers frontman for about five years, up until their breakup in early 2018 — describes how Antonoff and a certain singer whose album he was producing became “ensconced” in the recording studio in the apartment Dunham shared with her then-boyfriend. “I was too oblivious to be jealous of [her],” the screenwriter recalls of the young pop star, who apparently referred to Dunham as “Aunt Lena” and whose “needs seemed as massive and complex as my own.”

According to passages shared by Entertainment Weekly, Dunham goes on to write that she once found Antonoff’s collaborator “sprawled across our sectional couch, weeping into Jack’s lap as he told her that ‘your teens are for experimenting’ in a tone so comforting, it almost brought tears to my eyes. It had been so long since he’d spoken to me with that kind of expansive generosity.”

After a while, Dunham says she suggested to the guitarist that “perhaps their closeness was striking an odd note, that [the unnamed pop star] wanted something from him that he couldn’t give.”

She says she also expressed feeling “like a ghost” whenever she saw the two of them together, to which she claims Antonoff replied, “‘You’re just mad because she doesn’t want to be your friend.’”

“And he was right,” Dunham added while also acknowledging, “I had observed careful boundaries [in our relationship] … If I’d wanted to look, perhaps I may have seen that Jack was not observing them as closely as I was.”

Billboard has reached out to Antonoff’s reps for comment.

Dunham and the former Fun band member have since gone on to marry other people, with the former wedding Luis Felber in 2021 and the latter tying the knot with Margaret Qualley in 2023. Elsewhere in Famesick, the director shares details of her emotional breakup from Antonoff and admits to cheating on him with a former middle school flame days before their split.

Antonoff’s work as a producer has only expanded exponentially in the years since the time period described in Dunham’s memoir. In 2022, he won his first of three consecutive Grammys for producer of the year, nonclassical, and has worked on Billboard 200-topping albums by Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar and Sabrina Carpenter.

His band Bleachers is currently gearing up to drop new album Everyone for Ten Minutes in May.

ENHYPEN fans can sleep tight tonight knowing that their K-pop idols are hitting the road. The K-pop boy band announced on Tuesday (April 14) the dates and venues for their upcoming “BLOOD SAGA” world tour.

The announcement comes only a month after HEESEUNG announced that he would be leaving ENHYPEN to pursue a solo career, transforming the band from a septet to a six-piece. The remaining members — Jake, Jay, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon and Ni-ki — are continuing as ENHYPEN and taking their music on the road with “BLOOD SAGA.” The upcoming tour is the group’s first since its 2025 WALK THE LINE world tour sold out both its U.S. and European legs entirely.

ENHYPEN will kick off “BLOOD SAGA” with three consecutive sold-out dates at KSPO Dome in Seoul, starting May 1. From there, the group will head to Latin America for the first time, where they’ll play in São Paulo, Brazil; Lima, Peru; and Mexico City in July. After Mexico, ENHYPEN will perform along the Southwest and West Coast of the U.S., with stops in Dallas, San Diego, Tacoma, Oakland and Las Vegas. Finally, the K-pop group will close out “BLOOD SAGA” with winter 2027 dates in Europe and the U.K., hitting Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and London. This will mark the group’s second time touring in Europe.

ENGENE Membership presale tickets for Latin America, the U.K. and Europe “BLOOD SAGA” will run from Wednesday, April 22, at 10 a.m. to Thursday, April 23, at 10 p.m. local time. U.S. presale will run from Wednesday, April 22, at 4 p.m. to Thursday, April 23, at 10 p.m. local time.

General onsale will begin Friday, April 24, at 10 a.m. local time. To participate in the presale, fans must apply in advance on Weverse by Sunday, April 19. Fans can find more information on the tour here.

See below for the full list of “BLOOD SAGA” world tour dates and venues.

Jul 4, 2026 – São Paulo, Brazil – Allianz Parque
July 8, 2026 – Lima, Peru – Estadio San Marcos
July 11, 2026 – Mexico City, Mexico – Arena CDMX
July 17 & 18, 2026 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center
July 21, 2026 – San Diego, CA – Snapdragon Stadium
July 26, 2026 – Tacoma, WA – Tacoma Dome
July 28 & 29, 2026 – Oakland, CA – Oakland Arena
Aug 1, 2026 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena
Feb 24, 2027 – Milan, IT – Unipol Dome
Feb 27, 2027 – Paris, FR – La Défense Arena
Mar 2, 2027 – Amsterdam, NL – Ziggo Dome
Mar 5, 2027 – Berlin, DE – Uber Arena
Mar 9, 2027 – London, UK – The O2

In 2026, PSYCHIC FEVER continued expanding its overseas reach, taking on new challenges on a global scale. The group has been steadily building up a wealth of experience, putting on its first North American tour in 2025 and performing at SXSW 2025 in Austin, Texas. Building on the enthusiastic response it has received, it is planning on releasing a new album this July.

Billboard JAPAN talked to JIMMY and WEESA while they were in London.

PSYCHIC FEVER had a fan meeting in London in July 2025, right? What about your London fans made an impression on you?

JIMMY: The reason we were able to come to London is that a lot of overseas listeners got to hear “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY” thanks to social media. When we performed for the first time in London, we had fans singing along to “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY.” But what got me really hyped was that fans had also listened to the songs we released after “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY” and they were singing along as we performed them. The buzz wasn’t just a one-time thing, they really liked PSYCHIC FEVER and were following along with our releases, which made me so happy.

WEESA: The first time we came to Europe, you could feel this powerful energy coming off the fans. They were dancing and singing to our songs even more energetically than we were. Seeing those fans, I welled up with love for performing in Europe. I feel like we’ve been influenced by our European fans, both in our music and the way we perform.

You’ve played in a lot of different countries. What differences have you found in the fans?

WEESA: The songs that get the audience pumped are different depending on the country. Each country has its own sound, and the music that resonates with people depends on the country, so the parts of the shows that get the crowd going in one country are totally different than another country.

JIMMY: In America, the audience really gets into “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY” and the songs with the 2000s and late 1990s feel that inspired us. In London and the rest of Europe, “Highlights,” which is performed by us and REN, went viral before “Just Like Dat feat. JP THE WAVY.” It has an electronic sound, and it feels like a huge number of the fans are into that kind of genre.

You’re building up a lot of experience with the aim of going global, and I’m sure you’ve had your struggles, but has there been anything that’s made you especially happy or left a lasting impression?

JIMMY: We moved to Thailand soon after our debut, lived there for about six months, and continued to use it as our base for roughly two years. While things didn’t go exactly as we’d hoped, one great thing was that we were able to use that experience as a starting point to perform in all kinds of overseas locations. I’m also really glad that we’ve been able to serve as a gateway for people to become interested in the whole LDH family, both groups that came before us and newer ones. I love that people aren’t just digging us, but other groups too.

I think one of PSYCHIC FEVER’s strengths is that, even though you’re young, you’ve got a message that you convey through your music. Are there any tricks to keeping that steady core?

JIMMY: When we debuted, we didn’t have a really strong concept like “this is the kind of style we’re going for.” We built up our confidence through our overseas experience and the reactions of our fans. So all seven of us were on different pages, but people said that was one of the things that made us great. Those differences are what got people interested in us. Those reactions really resonated with us, which is why we’re able to share our message. The more we get from our fans, the more we want to give back. I think that automatically feeds into the strength of our team.

So as you were building up that, you were also working on your new album, DIFFERENT. What was the creation process like?

WEESA: JIMMY and I wrote lyrics for the first time, and we all talked about what to do from the very start, creating the album from the ground up. A lot of people took part in the album’s creation, so reflecting everyone’s ideas and creating a finished work was really hard, but we were able to pack in even more than our first album, so I think it’s going to come out well.

JIMMY: On our EPs, we’ve tried our hands at hip-hop, R&B, and electronic music. We built up a lot of experience through the process, and I think that’s created the foundation for DIFFERENT. We all have our differences, and that shapes our identity and is one of our strengths. I’ve come to feel that really strongly during the time we’ve been working on the album. This is our first time deciding on a solid concept and creating an album, so it took a lot of time, but we worked hard to create something that would resonate with people around the world.

So there’s a connection between the title of the album, DIFFERENT, and the identities of the group’s seven members?

WEESA: We named the album DIFFERENT to share the message that being different is a good thing. That being different has value. I think there’s also a lot of significance in the fact that we’re releasing this album from London, which is a melting pot of races.

I’m looking forward to the album release. This year, you’ve got a Japanese tour coming up, as well as overseas shows. What kind of hopes do you have for five years down the road?

JIMMY: I’d like to do an arena-sized show. Today, even. My main goal is to perform for a lot of people. Whether the venue is big or small, what we do is the same, but if we want to be seen by a lot of people, we need to perform at venues with capacities in the tens of thousands. I go all out in every performance to get ready for that, but I’d like to further improve my performances.

Changing gears a little, what foods have you liked in London?

JIMMY: I’m constantly eating fish and chips.

WEESA: London has lived up to its reputation for having great meat.

JIMMY: I had meat yesterday.

WEESA: Like steak! There’s this one restaurant I’d love to go to, so I hope I have the chance. There are a lot of delicious restaurants in London.

I’ve heard you really like London, JIMMY. 

JIMMY: London is a great place for learning English, and I like the fashion, so every time I come here I go to the shops and vintage clothing stores around Brick Lane. I’ve been all around the world, and London is my favorite place to go shopping. Recently, there have been a lot of new young street fashion brands coming out, and people around me have been talking about how great London’s street fashion is.

Also, London’s kind of like Japan in a few ways. There are a lot of people who really value older culture and their roots. Even young people will talk about how they’ve gone with a certain look because of the roots of that fashion. I don’t know if I’d exactly call it craftsmanship, but there’s a certain mentality that’s a lot like Japan.

Yeah, Brits do tend to go really deep. I understand why creators like the UK so much. 

JIMMY: British stuff is cool. If I could live anywhere, I’d live in London.

I’m looking forward to hearing about PSYCHIC FEVER playing here in London and whipping up a frenzy in the near future.

This interview by Tomoko Moore first appeared on Billboard Japan

Avenged Sevenfold are returning to Australia for the first time in over a decade. The California heavy metal band announced a four-city East Coast arena run, along with a New Zealand date, set for October 2026.

Coheed and Cambria and Melbourne alt-metal outfit Thornhill will serve as support across all shows.

The tour opens at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on Oct. 16, followed by Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Oct. 18, Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Oct. 20, and Spark Arena in Auckland on Oct. 23.

Members of the band’s Deathbats Club and Deathbats Rewards Ticketpass programs have priority access, with an artist presale opening Wednesday, April 15 at 10 a.m. local. General tickets go on sale Friday, April 17 at 11 a.m. local via livenationentertainment.com.

Avenged Sevenfold last performed in Australia in March 2014, co-headlining Soundwave Festival alongside Green Day, with sideshows at Melbourne’s Festival Hall and Sydney’s Luna Park in support of their 2013 album Hail to the King. The upcoming run marks their first standalone Australian headline dates since then.

Since that visit, the band has released two more albums: 2016’s The Stage and 2023’s Life Is But a Dream…, the latter of which they are continuing to promote.

Hail to the King topped the Billboard 200 upon its release, as did 2010’s Nightmare — the band’s first No. 1 on the chart. The Stage reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in 2016, while Life Is But a Dream… peaked at No. 13 in 2023. Throughout their career, the band has placed multiple singles at the top of the Mainstream Rock chart, including “Hail to the King” and “Shepherd of Fire.”

Formed in Huntington Beach, California in 1999, Avenged Sevenfold built their following through a metalcore foundation before broadening into mainstream heavy metal and later progressive rock. Their catalog has sold more than 8 million records worldwide.