In the world of Black Label Society, Zakk Wylde is working "smarter, not harder," as the band is ready to release their new album, 'Engines of Demolition,' on March 27.

During an Audacy Check In with Abe Kanan, the always hilarious Wylde joked about the new project, saying, "It's really no big deal. People are like, 'well, Zakk, what makes it so special compared to all the other records?' I go, 'well, first off, of all the Black Label albums, this is the new one.' Second off, they're like, 'well, the songs all sound the same.' I go, 'I know, because that's all we do is just put different song titles and lyrics to these things and just put them out there.' I mean, you gotta think smarter, not harder."

In all seriousness though, what little there is with Wylde, there is a song on the upcoming album called, "Ozzy Song," that looks back on his friendship playing with Ozzy Osbourne, and the feelings surrounding his funeral. "It's about the greatest that ever was and the greatest that it'll ever be," shares Zakk. Thinking the two would record again and play together again after the success of Back To The Beginning, Wylde was ready for what's next with Ozzy. Sadly though, he never got the chance.

"After we went over there and laid him to rest, you know, being a pallbearer and our oldest son, who's Ozzy's godson, we were pallbearers carrying Oz to his final resting place. After that, when we got home, we did finish up the Pantera celebration run. I got home, sat in the library, looked at one of his books, and I just wrote the lyrics. I put the music on and I said it."

"I just wrote the lyrics right there for Ozzy, and my wife just kept referring to it as 'Ozzy's Song.' They put on 'Ozzy Song' when we were in the truck listening to it when we'd be going somewhere. So, I just said, 'I'm just gonna name it 'Ozzy Song,' cause that's what it is.' If somebody asked me, 'Zakk, did you write that song for Ozzy?' It's like, 'yeah,' so I'll just call it 'Ozzy Song.' So there you go."

To hear more about celebrating Ozzy Osbourne, his time touring in Pantera, and the new album, 'Engines of Demolition,' check out the full Audacy Check In above.

A "real and raw" new album from Bebe Rexha is incoming, but the first sample has already arrived. Last week the GRAMMY-nominated singer blast back into our world with the pulsating and vulnerable new, "I Like You Better Than Me," and now she's ready to talk about what's next.

Inside the Rockstar Suite at the Hard Rock Hotel New York, Rexha lets us inside the making of her album, 'Dirty Blonde,' out everywhere on June 12, telling Mike Adam how her latest chapter came together.

Rexha took some risks on her fourth full length project, featuring "a little bit of the old Bebe, new Bebe," blending Country, Pop, Dance, and live guitars into something uniquely her. “That's been really fun to me, kind of genre bending a little bit," she shares.

Feeling the full range of everything, Bebe explains, "like crying in the bedroom to crying on the dance floor... there's some songs like that, and then there's some songs that are like, 'I'm the s***.'"

"When I started the project, I started it being more of a dance album and then I kind of hit a wall because I was like, 'I don't know if I could do 13 songs.' I have so much I want to say," she shares. "I feel like I'm just like dying to get this part of me out that feels like it's hidden by a wall, and then we were able to write songs like 'I Like You Better Than Me,' or 'Time,' which is really meaningful to me, or 'The Way I Want You,' that talk about so many different things that are really vulnerable for me."

"Whether it's unrequited love or my insecurities or feeling like I wasted the best years of my life in the wrong relationships, so many different topics that speak to me, but then there's also the songs that are towards the end, I think that's when I was starting to feel myself because I had kind of work through all of that."

For more on the making of 'Dirty Blonde,' navigating mental health, songwriting, and more, check out the full Audacy Check In above.

It's time to get in the ring once again with Slash of Guns N' Roses, as the band preps for another World Tour, this time with new music, and hopes for a full project in the studio. The guitar god recently joined Abe Kanan for an Audacy Check In, where he talked about the upcoming trek, and the possibility of a new Guns N' Roses album coming together.

Late last year, Guns N' Roses debuted a pair of new songs, "Nothin'" and "Atlas," right on the heels of sharing the itinerary for a World Tour. Now armed with their first new tracks since 2023, this March the band is back on the road as fans anxiously await to hears what's next.

"We've already written a ton of s***, so we just have to get together and actually get into the process of going through all the material and figuring out what the songs are gonna be and recording them and all that kind of s***," shares Slash on the prospect of a new album. "That's something that's pending, is probably going to happen sooner than later, because we've gotten all this other stuff out and we've been touring for pretty much the better part of the decade."

"We've been wanting to do this. It's just a matter of buckling down," he adds. "Anyway, but it's coming."

Unbelievably the reunited Guns N' Roses have almost been back together as long as they were together for their first record-breaking run. "I can't believe it's been 10 years since that April Fool's gig that we did at the Troubadour. It's unbelievable to me. It went by so quick."

"I really joined up with Guns in 1985 and I left in 1996, so it's one year short of as long as I've ever been in the band."

What was going to be a few warm-up shows and then a set at Coachella, has turned into another decade of Rock for GN'R, still as ferocious as always with marathon sets lasting long into the night. "The way that we do it is we have just a lot of material, so we put together a set list of all the possible songs that we want to do, and then we have another setlist of songs that we'd like to do that's called the 'alternative set,' and we mix pulling from both."

"We end up playing for 3+ hours just because we are enjoying playing all this material. It's not designed, we didn't set out to go, 'OK, we're going to do 3, 3.5 hour sets.' They just sort of evolved that way, and it's been happening even in the nineties, we used to do that. But it's where we feel comfortable, we want to play this, we want to play this, and we want to play that, and we just keep doing that until all of a sudden it's like, 'OK, we should do 'Paradise City' now and get the f*** out of here."

Don't miss our full Audacy Check In with Slash from Guns N' Roses above.

Madison Beer fed fans earlier this month, finally unwrapping her latest album, 'locket,' and sharing dates for a world tour. Now the "bittersweet" singer joins us again for an Audacy Check In to talk about the full project now that it's out in the world, and her excitement for a booked and busy 2026.

"Definitely like a sigh of relief," Beer tells Bru of her emotions now that 'locket' is out in the world. "I feel proud of it. I feel pumped that people could listen to it and I'm not just listening to it in my car alone now."

"I think with this album, especially, I learned so much about myself," Madison reveals. "My writing process, my producing process, how to navigate writing about a relationship while it was still happening, then when it ended, the moments and the ebbs and flows of all the feelings that came and went with it."

Being in the moment instead of looking back on it was a new perspective for Beer on 'locket,' and one that led to bold new choices and a rollercoaster of emotions. "I think that I love this album so much because you can't really replicate the emotions that you're feeling in that exact situation," she shares. "For example, there's a song called 'you're still everything' on the album that has this really heavy auto-tune, which was only because we used really heavy auto tune when we were making the demo because I was having a really hard time and felt like I couldn't really sing. So I was like, 'just throw auto-tune on it.' And then we got super attached to the way the auto-tune had sounded and kind of fell in love with this like, sad robot singing the song."

"I think those things can't be replicated, and I think they happen really organically because of what's going on in your current life, or in your current frame of mind, and that's something that I think when you listen to this album, I hope people can feel and hear that these things are very real and when they were recorded was when they were happening."

"I think a lot of the music that I'd written before that was specifically heartbreak stuff, was after things had been said and done, whereas this was really, everything you hear was an emotional rollercoaster, and moments in time that were very real and active. I think that was a new experience for me but it was very healing and therapeutic in the process."

Don't miss our full Audacy Check In with Madison Beer above.

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.

As big as 2025 was for YUNGBLUD, he's somehow already looking at a larger 2026. Fresh off the release of a collaboration EP with Rock icons Aerosmith, the "Zombie" singer has 3 GRAMMY nominations and a massive 2026 tour to look forward to as the calendar turns, but first, he joins us at the Hard Rock Hotel New York to talk about it all during an Audacy Check In.

"I'm really lucky to kind of have a couple of weeks to like try and comprehend it all," he shares with Brad Steiner on his massive year. "I think the biggest thing I'm feeling is gratitude. I think I'm really trying to make sure that I like feel everything because, I think if you don't stop and think about what goes on and you don't process it, you just end up becoming a dick."

"This year has just been so insane, so I think the biggest feeling I'm feeling is is utter gratitude and I really feel lucky, you know what I mean?"

YUNGBLUD admits he took some risks on his latest album, 'Idols,' and his authenticity paid off. "I think my 3rd album came out and I was listening to too many people. I think when you listen to too many people, you kind of create a character or you play a caricature of yourself," YUNGBLUD reveals. "I think with this album I really went home to the north of England and was like, 'I wanna make something that is completely limitless in terms of its imagination,' and leans on the side of like Rock opera, double album."

Praising previous albums for inspiration like The Smashing Pumpkins' 'Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness' or Guns N' Roses' 'Use Your Illusion,' YUNGBLUD wanted an album "that would kind of take you on an adventure, and in 2025 everyone thought I was a bit f***ing mad."

"I always wanna do it when it's truthful, if it's not truthful it's just soul destroying man, you know what I mean? I think that's what's been so beautiful about me and my community, we've always had, whether it be like starting a festival or gigs or how YUNGBLUD got built in the first place, it was always through an element of truth and always through an element of like, honest communication and when it wasn't becoming honest I was like, 'this is not what I did this for.'"

Now a more pure version of himself, YUNGBLUD looks ahead to 2026 for sold out shows and finishing the project that brought him here. "I really wanna release the second part of 'Idols,'" he shares and reveals it's been ready to go "forever."

"I really wanna finish the world, it's such a world that that if I don't put that out next, even though as an artist I'm writing a new album and I've almost like departed that in my soul because I wrote it, printed it to wax, and put it out - I've got to finish 'Idols 2,' and put that to the world because the world needs to feel that environment fully fleshed out."

To hear more from YUNGBLUD on working with Aerosmith and his plans for 2026, check out the full interview above.