Switchfoot is one of those bands critics love to hate: religious, relatively clean cut and exceedingly family-friendly. But over the years, the band’s has shown an admirable independent streak. Forsaking a major label in 2009 was just the start. Speaking from the San Diego airport in anticipation of Sunday’s Edgefest…

Like the beast it’s named after, Atlanta’s Mastodon is fairly ugly and makes a hell of a racket. In just over a decade, the band has released five albums and each has been better than the last, culminating in 2011’s The Hunter. Speaking from the tour bus and in anticipation…

Hugely influential on the local metal scene, Rigor Mortis’ violent live performances throughout the mid-to-late-’80s are the stuff of legend. Vocalist Bruce Corbitt was fired in 1989 and the band was never the same. Luckily, after a 20-year cooling off period, the original line-up has been playing reunion shows since…

Moving from Tennessee to London proved fairly easy for Nathan Nicholson of The Boxer Rebellion. After losing his mother in 2000, he hightailed it across the pond and quickly formed a band. Speaking from a tour stop in Austin and in anticipation of tonight’s show at Dada, Nicholson talked about…

On and off, for nearly three decades, Brent Best has fronted Slobberbone, arguably the best alt-country act to emerge from the local scene. Beginning in the mid-’90s, the group produced a series of albums that culminated in 2000’s Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today, which remains a landmark…

Led by the energetic and enigmatic Riley Gale, Dallas metal-punk trio Power Trip has been stuck in a creative lull since releasing the killer Armageddon Blues EP back in 2010. However, since changing drummers and getting the guitarist to commit full time, Power Trip is once again forging ahead, having…

Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, is a talented, young singer-songwriter who has made quite a mark with his sophomore effort, Put Your Back N 2 It. However, the release was not without controversy. Perfume Genius’ 16-second ad for the new album was deemed inappropriate by YouTube because it featured the…

Bands that mash up several genres can produce some amazingly unique music as well as some unadulterated shit. New York’s Mindless Self Indulgence is quite capable of doing both within the same song. For nearly 15 years, Jimmy Urine and crew have created what they like to call industrial jungle…

Although they may look like rejects from the casting call for a sequel to The Craft, Nashville’s The Black Belles are actually more original than their look suggests. The band was “discovered” by Jack White, but the four Belles see him more as mentor than Svengali. Speaking from Laredo and…

Although Britain’s Band of Skulls has been around since 2004, the power trio has managed to release just two full length efforts. And the recently issued Sweet Sour is good enough to make one wish the band were a bit more prolific. Featuring a diverse collection of blues based garage…

Back in the drunken glory days of the Replacements, not many people would have described bassist Tommy Stinson as hardworking. But hell, he was still in his teens. Now 45, Stinson has developed a work ethic that is damn near impossible to fathom. Besides being the full-time bassist in Guns…

Even though country singer Wayne “The Train” Hancock was born in the ’60s, he comes across like a man from an entirely different generation. His look, mannerisms and style of music are much more akin to someone raised in the Roaring Twenties, though Hancock’s first album was released in 1995…

From his home in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Jesse Tabish sounded a bit nervous. The leader of Other Lives certainly had every right to be anxious. His band was just about to begin a tour with Radiohead. Well, that tour makes a stop in Dallas this evening at the AAC and Tabish…

After leaving Megadeth in 2002 and bringing a lawsuit against Dave Mustaine in 2004, very few people thought original bassist Dave Ellefson would ever appear with the band again. Yet, behind the scenes, over a period of six years, Mustaine and Ellefson were both rediscovering Christianity and having conversations about…

Possessing one of rock’s most recognizable voices, former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson sounds as good today as he did when he helped form the legendary progressive rock band over four decades ago. From his home studio in California and in anticipation of tonight’s gig at the Kessler Theater with…

Purveyors of heavy metal always seem to be obsessed with epic literature.Take Russell Allen of Symphony X. He’s fronted New Jersey’s progressive metal act for nearly 20 years, and in that time, Symphony X has released albums based on both The Odyssey and Paradise Lost. Last year, they released Iconoclast,…