Behind the Setlist
At Behind the Setlist, we talk to artists to get the stories about the songs they play live. Most artists are known best for their recordings, but they love to be on stage. That's where the music feels at home. That's where they connect with the audience. How do they pick the songs to take the audience on a journey? Why do they cover other artists' songs? How many new songs can an artist fit into a 16-song set when people want to hear the classics? We find out. Hosted by Glenn Peoples (Billboard) and Jay Gilbert (Label Logic).
Episodes
July 23, 2024 • 30 mins
Melissa Etheridge had wanted to perform at a prison for decades. In fact, she grew up within a stone's throw of a penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, where Johnny Cash performed in 1970. "Prisons must be a place of great entertainment," she thought to herself, "and someday I'm gonna grow up and play a prison." Decades later, after a string of platinum albums and multiple Grammy Awards, Etheridge fulfilled her wish. The concert is ...
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July 19, 2024 • 37 mins
Mat Kearney's self-titled, 8th studio album (released May 15 through Middle Kid Records) adds a dash of the early '80s to his highly crafted songwriting. Mat was enamored by the band The Brook & The Bluff, he tells Billboard's Behind the Setlist podcast, and had them back him in the studio to capture the exact sound he wanted (he also went for the sound of one of his favorite albums, Paul Simon's Graceland). Mat also talks about th...
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July 17, 2024 • 26 mins
Pat Monahan co-founded the rock band Train and gave his soaring voice to such hits songs as "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)," "Meet Virginia," "Calling All Angels" and "Hey Soul Sister." Pat joins Billboard's Behind the Setlist to talk about building a setlist for the band's current tour with REO Speedwagon, his wine businesses (Save Me, San Francisco Wine Co.), his talented bandmates, how he takes care of his voice while constantly to...
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July 2, 2024 • 36 mins
Adam Lazzara is the frontman for Taking Back Sunday, whose single "S'old" from the album 152 spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart in late 2023 and early 2024. Taking Back Sunday broke out of Long Island, New York to put four albums inside the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart: Where You Want to Be, Louder Now, New Again and Happiness Is. 152 is the band's 8th studio album and 1st for Fantasy Records.
Lin...
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June 20, 2024 • 27 mins
Rising country star Chayce Beckham wrote and performed the song “23,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart in April. He also performed the song on season 19 of "American Idol" and joined such luminaries as Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson and Scotty McCreery by winning the talent competition. To support his album Bad For Me (released in April 2024 through Wheelhouse Records), Chayce is hitting the road this su...
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May 8, 2024 • 34 mins
Birdy (Jasmine van den Bogaerde) broke into the mainstream in 2011 when, at the age of 14, she released a cover of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love," a song that remains a staple in her live performances. "Skinny Love" was a hit in the U.K. and Australia and helped her debut, self-titled album top album charts in Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium. Birdy's latest album, Portraits, is a blast of '80s orchestral synth-pop that recalls the...
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April 19, 2024 • 41 mins
K.Flay (Kristine Flaherty) released her latest album, MONO, on Sept. 15, 2023 on Giant Music. Known for songs like "High Enough" and "Blood in the Cut," K.Flay says she recorded MONO like it was a debut album. "I just didn't have a ton of judgment," she says. "In a good way. I wasn't self censoring, or self judging, going, 'Man, that's a stupid idea.'" The result is "a no-holds-barred futuristic rock record" (When the Horn Blows) w...
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March 21, 2024 • 30 mins
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney join Billboard's Behind the Setlist podcast (Glenn Peoples from Billboard and Jay Gilbert from Label Logic) to talk about the upcoming album, Ohio Players, out April 5. The debut single, "Beautiful People (Stay High)" and other tracks were inspired by the rock, R&B and funk 7" singles they played during their Black Keys Record Hang gigs at clubs around the U.S., Europe and Mexico City in 2023. "The w...
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March 14, 2024 • 34 mins
Neil Finn of Crowded House joined Billboard's Behind the Setlist podcast to chat about the band's upcoming album, Gravity Stairs, out May 31 through BMG, and the first single, "Oh Hi" (watch the amazing video at YouTube here). Neil shares some insights into the songwriting craft, the band's live performances and Crowded House's long history.
Crowded House was formed in 1985 after the break-up of Neil's previous band Split Enz ("I G...
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March 5, 2024 • 36 mins
Success — and longevity — isn't lost on Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson. "It just seems unreal to me that I've been in a band called Barenaked Ladies for three and a half decades," Robertson tells Behind the Setlist. Best known for their 1998 hit "One Week" and the theme song to the comedy TV show "Big Bang Theory," Barenaked Ladies is still going strong. They released their 14th studio album, In Flight, in September 2023 and are pr...
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December 15, 2023 • 51 mins
No other band sounds like Gogol Bordello. Frontman Eugene Hütz has crafted a caustic blend of styles that meld his affection for punk with the Romani music from his native Ukraine. Gogol Bordello released its ninth studio album, Solidartine, in 2022. This year, Hütz launched a new label, Casa Gogol Records, with a collaboration with New Order's Bernard Sumner, "Solidarity," and put out a track to benefit Ukraine, "United Strike Bac...
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October 4, 2023 • 36 mins
Andy Summers is best known as the guitarist in The Police. But in certain circles, he's also known as an accomplished photographer with numerous books and his own camera, the Leica M Monochrome "Signature" by Andy Summers. Andy is currently mixing his two passions with A Cracked Lens + Missing String, a solo tour in the U.S. and Canada where he performs in front of a backdrop of his photographs. His latest book, A Series of Glances...
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September 22, 2023 • 34 mins
Veteran singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield joins Behind the Setlist to talk about her upcoming album, her concert setlists and her long career in music. Juliana will release her 20th solo studio album on Nov. 17 — Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO, a collection of 10 covers of songs by Electric Light Orchestra. It's Juliana's third album of covers songs after Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John in 2018 and Juliana Hatfield Sings the...
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August 11, 2023 • 45 mins
Grace Potter's '70s influences come through on her new album, Mother Road (out August 18 through Fantasy Records). The Vermont native built her name as the leader of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, sang on a hit song ("You and Tequilla" in 2010) with country star Kenny Chesney and had a song ("Something That I Want") on the 2010 Disney movie Tangled. Now with countless tour dates and five solo albums under her belt, Grace joins Be...
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August 9, 2023 • 41 mins
Rock-folk-blues musician Peter Case began busking in San Francisco in the '70s, co-founded the Nerves ("Hanging on the Telephone") in 1974 and the Plimsouls ("A Million Miles Away") in 1978 and has been a solo artist since 1986. Since three albums for Geffen Records, Case has recorded for indie labels such as Vanguard, Yep Roc and, most recently, Sunset Blvd. Records. On his 16th studio album, Doctor Moan (released March 31, 2023),...
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July 10, 2023 • 27 mins
Les Claypool is the co-founder of the rock band Primus and is currently touring with the return of Colonel Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, one of his many bands and collaborations that showcase his unique skills on the bass and a penchant for psychedelic, absurdist and oddball music.
The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade tours through July 15 and breaks until a gig at the Fox Theater in Oakland, CA, on Oct. 11. That tour conti...
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June 23, 2023 • 45 mins
Arguably the best band named after a Monty Python sketch, Toad the Wet Sprocket sprung from Santa Barbara, CA, to popularity in the early '90s on the strength of the platinum albums Fear ("All I Want," "Walk on the Ocean") and Dulcinea ("Fall Down," "Something's Always Wrong") that captured the spirit of the alternative rock of the era. Their latest album, Starting Now, was released in 2021 and shows the band hasn't lost a step. Si...
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June 7, 2023 • 50 mins
Known for the metal anthems "Last Resort" and "Scars," Papa Roach is an enduring figure in the turn-of-the-century nu-metal scene. The band's 2000 album Infest went triple-platinum in the U.S. on the strength of "Last Resort." That was followed by Lovehatetragedy in 2002 (certified gold) and Getting Away with Murder in 2004 (certified platinum). Their concerts are a non-stop barrage that covers the band's twenty-plus years and, rec...
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May 16, 2023 • 32 mins
Bear Rinehart is the singer and co-founder of NEEDTOBREATHE, a commercially successful rock band founded in South Caroline in 2001. Known for their uplifting, spiritual music, NEEDTOBREATHE has had a string of top 10 albums (The Outsiders, The Reckoning, Rivers in the Wasteland and Hard Love) and performs in arenas and amphitheaters around the U.S. As a solo under performing under the name Wilder Woods, Rinehart takes a rootsy, Ame...
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May 4, 2023 • 30 mins
Blues musician Joe Bonamassa just had his 26th No. 1 album on the Billboard Blues Albums chart with Tales of Time, a live recording of his 2021 album Time Clocks recorded in 2022 at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. Joe talks to Behind the Setlist about his latest tour, the concert that became Tales of Time, covering songs by Tom Waits and ZZ Top, which younger blues musicians he thinks are exciting, and his not-for...
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