Now that Harry Styles owns 2026, it seems only right that we check in with the GRAMMY-winning artist to talk about his upcoming album, 'Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally,' his massive worldwide residency, and his new song, "Aperture."

During a conversation with Bru, Styles shares that his 4th solo studio album arrives after some time away out of the spotlight, and some time in the crowd that has helped inform the sound of what's next. "The last couple of years, after finishing the tour and everything, I just kind of decided to take a couple of years away to kind of spend a bit more time swimming in different corners of my life that I hadn't necessarily paid that much attention to," Harry reveals. "The start of last year I kind of just decided I was gonna say yes to everything. I think I'd got really used to saying no to a lot of things just from being on the road, and missing certain things that maybe my friends were doing or something, and I kind of just wanted to take the year to just kind of go with it and be open to traveling a bit more and taking people up on invites and just experiencing things that otherwise I think I'd started kind of shutting myself off from a bit."

"The last two years for me has been a lot about getting on the other side of the audience experience," Styles shares. "I think I've spent a lot of time being the one on stage, and I spent a lot of time the last couple of years going to shows, having my own music experiences of being a true audience member, and reminding myself how special that is and how amazing that feeling is to be in a room with people you know, and people you don't know, and dancing and singing and having this kind of common thing together."

"When I'm on stage I wanna feel like I'm in the crowd and that was the reason why I think the album ended up sounding how it sounds. The intention was, 'how do I make it like it's made from within the crowd and not I'm up here delivering songs to you and you're receiving them?' It's like we're all here for the same thing, you know?"

That story starts with "Aperture," which Harry explains was the last song recorded for the album, but encapsulates where he's at right now. "I think it came at a time when we were feeling at our freest," he says. "It felt kind of really obvious to me that it should be first on the album, so it was kind of like, 'oh this this is exactly how I've kind of always wanted to open an album,' with this this kind of song."

"It's been a really important song to me. I think [it] represents the last couple of years of my life, the idea that you can really choose how much you let into your life, and if you're gonna be more closed off, then you're gonna close off to certain things but also you're gonna close off a lot of the positive things that can come. So I think kind of deciding at a time when I was trying to be more open in my life, I think this song wrapped that up pretty neatly for me."

To here about Styles upcoming 'Together, Together' tour, and more about the album, 'Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally,' check out the full interview above.

As Five Finger Death Punch prepares to celebrate their 20th anniversary with new music and an extensive tour, guitarist Zoltan Bathory joins us once again for an Audacy Check In to share all the details.

Earlier this week in announcing their 2026-2027 World Tour, the band also shared that they are helping support the U.S. Olympic Team with a portion of ticket proceeds, and that they are hard at work on their 10th studio album.

"We have about 25-ish songs that [are] eventually gonna get chopped down to the ones that are gonna make it, but that's where we are," Zoltan says of the band's upcoming album. "Maybe 2, 3 of them have vocals on it already to some degree, so, you know, we're working on it."

"We're going to the proper studio, probably sometime in February."

After discussing the complexities of touring with a major Rock band like Five Finger Death Punch, Bathory admitted that he'd still never trade it because of the power of a Rock show. "There's something about a Rock show, you know, a real Rock show, a Metal show, there's nothing like it, it's a different vibe."

"It's never gonna go away," he adds. "This is something that you can't, you know, AI can't fake it, you can't download it, the experience of being there, it's unrepeatable in any other way."

"That's always been a goal, build more and more because you wanna create an experience, you wanna create an environment that's sort of immersive, because when you are at the show, it's like you're going to a theme park, you don't want to think of anything else, right? This is your moment where you can have this tribal experience and the noise of life goes away."

For more on the 20th anniversary of the band and their upcoming tour, don't miss our full Audacy Check In with Zoltan Bathory of Five Finger Death Punch above.

To celebrate the release of their latest single, "Searchlight," Shinedown joins us for a special Audacy LIVE, as the band talks with Rob + Holly about the making of the track, and performs the song exclusively inside our Audacy Sound Space.

"The song just kind of came to us. It didn't take long to write, and when it came to, it just lent itself to that kind of thing," shares Zach Myers. "We're never like, 'this is the only chart we haven't been on. Let's go to this chart,' because then the next one we'd have to make like an R&B record. We've been on 5 so far."

"That's one thing I respect so much about the Country world is, a good song is a good song is a good song, and that's all we care about. Whatever the song lends itself to is what we want it to be, we're never gonna try to force something."

"The whole reason that we've been able to be able to be authentic and honest is because radio has allowed us to do that, our fan base has allowed us to do that." reveals Brent Smith. "You have to have something to say, and for 'Searchlight,' when we were in there, the initial first run of the song, it was a different song, and then I sat with it for a few days, went back into the studio with everybody, and said, 'let me re-sing this.'"

"I just heard it differently than what had been presented in the demo," adds Brent. "And, you know, me and Zach were born and raised in Tennessee. He's 901, I'm 865, so Memphis and Knoxville. We were raised on Country music. We were raised on a lot of different music, but for the song, I just went in and said, 'let me do this and just hear me out.'"

"We added a banjo because it asked for a banjo. We added a steel guitar and a slide because it asked for that, and it had more of an endearing quality because I sang it with a bit more of a draw. We have some people that listen to it that are in Country music that are like, 'this is very Country,' and then we have some people who are like, 'I don't know if it's Country,' and that's fine because at the end of the day we had to be honest with the song. We're a vessel for these songs. We have to be very open and allow the universe to talk to us."

For more from Shinedown on their relationships with Carrie Underwood and Jelly Roll, and stories behind other hits like "Second Chance," don't miss the band's full conversation with Rob + Holly and a special performance of "Searchlight" above.