There’s a moment early in the conversation when the old argument surfaces again — the one that keeps getting resurrected like a zombie headline every few years: rock is dead. But then Sass Jordan laughs. Brian Tichy shrugs. And somewhere between the riffs, the memories of Santa Clarita living-room drum takes, and the stubborn refusal to polish away the grit, the myth quietly collapses under its own weight.

Because when you hear what they built together as Something Unto Nothing, you don’t hear nostalgia. You hear combustion.

The project didn’t start as a band. It didn’t even start as a plan. It started the way most great rock records used to: two lifers in a room, chasing a feeling. Tichy had riffs. Jordan had a voice that doesn’t so much sing as ignite. The opening track “Burned” arrived almost instantly — first takes, first instincts, first electricity. No label. No manager. No click tracks. No safety net. Just microphones, instincts, and the kind of chemistry you don’t manufacture.

That chemistry had history.

The two hadn’t seriously connected since the early ’90s, when Tichy played drums on Jordan’s Rats era material before getting pulled into the gravitational orbit of Zakk Wylde’s Pride & Glory. After that, their paths drifted — festivals in Europe, shared bills with giants like Aerosmith, and then silence for more than a decade. It took a stray MySpace comment about Lou Gramm to reconnect them. Rock and roll’s version of fate rarely announces itself politely.

When Jordan eventually showed up at Tichy’s house in 2010, what followed wasn’t a session. It was a flood.

Songs arrived in clusters. Three at a time. Half-finished ideas turning into fully formed statements before either of them could slow the momentum. They weren’t trying to write a record. They were trying to chase a feeling they remembered from another era — the one where bands still sounded like bands, and the studio still felt like a laboratory instead of a spreadsheet.

So they moved the drums into the living room.

Literally.

Inspired by the ghost of Bonham-sized ambience and the belief that space matters as much as tone, Tichy abandoned isolation booths for open-air resonance. Jordan leaned into the looseness. The result was a record tracked organically — no Auto-Tune tricks, no over-compression safety rails, just performances captured while they were still breathing. As Tichy put it, the goal wasn’t to sound impressive. The goal was to sound alive.

And it worked.

Listening back now, what stands out isn’t virtuosity — though there’s plenty of it — but intention. They weren’t chasing trends. They were chasing excitement. The kind that once lived between “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Roundabout,” “More Than a Feeling,” and “Hotel California” on a single FM dial spin in the ’70s. The kind of excitement that made you believe a song mattered before algorithms decided whether it did.

That philosophy carried straight into their take on the modern elephant in the control room: AI music.

Jordan doesn’t pretend the conversation is small. She sees it reshaping every creative field, from film to painting to songwriting. Tichy’s response is simpler and sharper: if you didn’t spend your life learning the craft, clicking a button isn’t the same thing as making music. It’s not bitterness. It’s pride — the good kind. The kind built from calluses and rehearsal rooms.

Still, they’re not naïve about the future. Jordan suspects authenticity may survive most clearly onstage, where presence still beats simulation. And maybe she’s right. Maybe live performance becomes the last frontier of the human signal.

If so, Something Unto Nothing already lives there.

The duo proved it when they stripped the songs down to “acoustic stomp” versions — guitar, voice, kick drum, hi-hat — and somehow made rooms full of Jeff Tate fans erupt anyway. No distortion walls. No backing tracks. Just tension and pulse. The kind of stripped-down intensity that reminds you amplification is optional when conviction isn’t.

Now, more than a decade after its original release, the record returns remastered — louder, wider, heavier where it counts — alongside bonus acoustic material captured in real time, in real rooms, with real air moving between players and audience. The reissue isn’t a nostalgia play. It’s a doorway. A signal flare pointing toward a second album that’s been quietly waiting in the shadows for years.

Because that’s the other twist here: there’s already more music.

A whole record’s worth.

Which makes the rerelease feel less like a retrospective and more like a reset button.

Rock didn’t disappear. It just moved back into someone’s living room for a while and waited for the right voices to turn the lights back on. 

Watch the full interview here starting at Noon Eastern on Tuesday April 14, 2026

Sass Jordan & Brian Tichy Just Reignited Rock—Must Watch! - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Sass Jordan, visit her Mosaic page:
https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/sass-jordan/v7

To explore Brian Tichy’s work and career, visit his Mosaic page:
https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/brian-tichy/v7

Written by Tina Houser 

Allie Colleen doesn’t just sing songs. She opens a trap door under the room and lets everybody fall straight into whatever feeling they’ve been trying not to touch. On Press Play Radio Conversations with The Don and Tina, she came in funny, sharp, wildly relatable, and completely unfiltered — the kind of artist who can pivot from Bath & Body Works heartbreak to Michael Jackson devotion to a full-on rant about AI butchering tattoos, all without losing the thread of who she is. And that thread is rare: she’s real, she’s witty, she’s emotionally fearless, and she knows exactly how to make vulnerability feel like a place people actually want to go.

That’s what makes Allie so magnetic. One minute she’s breaking down the scent-memory ache behind “Mahogany Teakwood,” a song so intimate it was never even meant to leave the room where it was written, and the next she’s explaining the unmatched power of silencing a crowd. Not with spectacle. Not with noise. With truth. For Allie, the magic isn’t just that a room goes quiet — it’s that people disappear into themselves for a minute. They go somewhere. They feel something. And she gets to be the one who took them there. That is the real flex, and she knows it.

There’s something wildly compelling about the way she talks about music because it never sounds rehearsed. It sounds lived-in. Whether she’s recalling the Sam Hunt songs that soundtrack her first year in Nashville, reflecting on the emotional weight of performing “Make Me a Man,” or lighting up over the first time she stumbled into the idea that someone had covered one of her songs online, Allie speaks like someone who still respects the miracle of connection. Not the fake version. The real one. The kind where a stranger learns your lyrics, or a fan in the highest, cheapest seats of an arena loses their mind because they remember seeing you before the spotlight got this big. That kind of devotion clearly gets to her. Maybe because she earns it honestly.

And honesty is her superpower. She can talk divorce without turning bitter. She can talk dating without pretending she has it figured out. She can joke about not wanting anyone to know she tolerated bad behavior and still land on something deeper about dignity, self-awareness, and survival. Even when she describes “While We’re Still Friends” as the kind divorce song for people who don’t want to slash tires and torch the past, there’s something bigger happening underneath it. She’s making room for endings that don’t have to become wars. In a culture obsessed with revenge anthems, that kind of grace almost feels rebellious.

Then there’s the chaos factor — and thank God for it. Allie Colleen is the kind of artist who can make a conversation go gloriously off the rails in the best possible way. Ask her about favorite artists and she’ll give you Cody Johnson, Ashley McBryde, and Michael Jackson with zero hesitation and complete conviction. Ask about Halloween and suddenly you’re deep in a passionately argued breakdown of Michael Myers politics, horror conventions, Rob Zombie debates, and a costume concept built around being every famous Michael at once. That blend of emotional depth and absolute comedic randomness is part of what makes her so watchable. She doesn’t feel polished into a brand. She feels like a person — a very funny, very thoughtful, very talented person who happens to be a killer songwriter.

And then came the AI conversation, where Allie did what the best artists do: she said the quiet part out loud. She didn’t come at it like someone afraid of the future. She came at it like someone who understands the difference between a tool and a replacement. She gets the value. She sees the efficiency. But she’s deeply bummed by what gets lost when musicians, songwriters, and working creatives get pushed out of the process. And when she started talking about AI-generated cover art, fake tattoo edits, venue posters turning her neck tattoo into a wagon wheel, and one horrifying image that made it look like “dad” was tattooed across her stomach, the whole thing became comedy with a very real point underneath it: technology without taste is a disaster. In true Allie fashion, she made the critique hilarious — threatening to throw a rock, then downgrading it to a penny or a quarter — but the frustration was real. The art matters. The details matter. Humans matter.

That’s really the takeaway with Allie Colleen. She’s not trying to be some untouchable mystery. She’s not hiding behind polish or posture. She’s just showing up with stories, scars, sharp one-liners, weird obsessions, big feelings, and songs that can stop a room cold. She can go from Broadway cover sets to arena stages with Jelly Roll, from acoustic confessionals to western-flavored anthems like “Back in the Saddle,” and still make it all feel like chapters from the same life. Because they are.

What makes Allie Colleen special isn’t just that she can sing — though she absolutely can. It’s that she understands the sacred little exchange between artist and audience better than most people twice her age. She knows a song can hold memory, scent, grief, desire, humor, and history all at once. She knows people don’t just listen to music; they hide in it, heal in it, and sometimes find themselves in it. And she knows how to meet them there.

That kind of artist doesn’t come around every day. And when she does, you don’t just hear her. You remember her.

Watch the full interview here: 

Why Allie Colleen Might Be the Most REAL Artist Right Now and How A.I. Cannot Understand Tattoos - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Allie Colleen, visit her Mosaic page here: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/allie-colleen. 

And if her music, her story, or her spirit hit home for you, send Allie a personal note here: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/allie-colleen-brooks. In a world full of noise, Allie Colleen is still making music that feels human — and that may be exactly why people keep coming back.

Jet Jurgensmeyer has already lived two careers before most artists finish figuring out their first chorus. Long before he was writing reflective country songs about sunsets, identity, and what it actually means to grow up in America, audiences knew him as Spanky in The Little Rascals (2014) and spotted him across television and film in projects like American Sniper, Adventures in Babysitting, and Last Man Standing. But if there’s one thing that becomes obvious within minutes of hearing him speak on Press Play Radio Conversations with Don and Tina, it’s that acting didn’t shape his voice nearly as much as Nashville did—and maybe even more than that, the Missouri cattle ranch where he spent the hours between stages learning what real life sounds like when it isn’t scripted.

Jet didn’t arrive in Nashville chasing a dream. He was raised inside one. His parents owned the Nashville Palace, a venue steeped in country tradition, and by the time most kids are figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, Jet was already stepping onto that stage at three years old. Acting followed soon after. Trips to Los Angeles became routine by age five. But the counterweight to the spotlight wasn’t another audition—it was a ranch. When he wasn’t performing, he was working cattle in Missouri with family, learning a rhythm that would later become the backbone of songs like “Nothing On You,” where he draws a line between wearing boots and living the life they’re supposed to represent. In a genre that still wrestles with authenticity every decade or so, Jet’s version of country doesn’t feel curated. It feels inherited.

That grounding shows up everywhere in his songwriting, especially in the way he talks about it. “An audience can smell bull crap from a mile away,” he said during the conversation, a line that sounds less like a quote and more like a rule he’s chosen to live by. It explains why so many of his songs feel personal without feeling confessional and why even his stripped-down acoustic performances carry the quiet gravity of artists twice his age. There’s a reason comparisons drift toward the classic singer-songwriter tradition when people hear him play with nothing but a guitar. He isn’t filling space. He’s telling stories.

And yet, Jet’s approach to building a music career looks less like a leap of faith and more like a long game. At Belmont University, the Nashville incubator responsible for shaping generations of industry professionals, he chose legal studies with a business minor instead of a traditional music degree. It’s the kind of decision that sounds almost rebellious in a city built on instinct and ambition. But growing up around contracts—and around the machinery of entertainment—gave him an unusually clear understanding of what it means to survive inside the business side of creativity. For Jet, learning the rules wasn’t a fallback plan. It was part of the strategy.

That awareness extends into the way he writes. Unlike artists who guard their notebooks like territory, Jet thrives in collaboration. “Good Days,” one of the tracks highlighted during the interview, came together just before he moved into his freshman dorm at Belmont during a co-writing session with Drew Rizzuto that turned into a lasting partnership. It’s a fitting origin story for a song that sounds like forward motion. Another standout, “Nothing On You,” emerged when two unfinished ideas—his opening verse and a collaborator’s title—locked together unexpectedly. In Nashville, that’s not unusual. But what’s striking is how comfortable Jet is letting songs become conversations instead of declarations. He doesn’t write to prove something. He writes to discover something.

That instinct surfaces again in “Midwest Sunset,” a song written about his girlfriend during his freshman year of college. It marked the first time he’d released something that personal—and the first time she’d ever had a song written about her. It’s a move that might feel risky for some artists still defining their identity. For Jet, it felt natural. He writes what he knows. And apparently, it works. They’re still together.

If there’s a thread running through his catalog so far, it’s the idea of phases. Jet openly describes his albums that way—snapshots of where he is rather than declarations of who he’ll always be. That mindset helps explain why his music moves easily between reflective acoustic moments and full-band country arrangements without sounding like it’s searching for a lane. He isn’t trying to land in one. He’s documenting the road.

Even his perspective on artificial intelligence in music reflects that balance between openness and caution. While some artists his age see AI as either a threat or a shortcut, Jet treats it like what it actually is: a tool. He recognizes its value in demo creation and songwriting workflow but draws a clear line between assistance and dependence. The moment artists stop being able to stand onstage with just a guitar and a voice, he suggests, something essential disappears. It’s the kind of answer that feels less like a position statement and more like a generational instinct. In an era flooded with perfection, imperfection suddenly matters again.

That tension between tradition and the present day comes into sharp focus in “Prove Me Wrong,” one of his most message-driven songs so far. Written in response to a cultural moment when conversations in America started sounding more like arguments than exchanges, the track avoids picking sides and instead invites listeners into dialogue. Jet’s explanation for the song is simple: don’t beat the person, beat the argument. It’s a philosophy that echoes through the track’s central lyric about courage in the land of the free, and it positions him in a rare space for a young artist—one where conviction doesn’t require confrontation.

Growing up in Nashville also means growing up inside country music history, and Jet’s early memories read like a backstage pass to the genre itself. He saw George Jones perform. He even stepped onstage once to sing “White Lightning” with him. Ask him about influences, though, and the answer that surfaces again and again is George Strait. Jet estimates he’s seen him close to fifteen times, which feels less like fandom and more like apprenticeship. It’s not hard to hear why. Strait’s ability to balance storytelling with restraint lives quietly inside Jet’s phrasing, especially in songs like “Searching Kind,” a soaring power-ballad-style track he wrote with JP Williams and David Seeger that builds its emotional weight not through vocal gymnastics but through the confidence to hold a note when the music moves around it.

For all the attention his acting career once brought him, Jet Jurgensmeyer doesn’t sound like someone trying to reinvent himself. He sounds like someone who always knew where he was headed and finally has the space to get there. He still auditions. He still records voiceover work. He still believes opportunity arrives in phases. But music is clearly the phase speaking the loudest right now, and it’s speaking in a voice shaped equally by Nashville stages, Missouri ranch fences, college classrooms, and writing rooms where unfinished ideas turn into songs people don’t forget.

Watch The Full Interview Here: Jet Jurgensmeyer: The Journey from Hollywood Sets to Country Stages - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Jet, visit his Mosaic page on Press Play: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/jet-jurgensmeyer  

If you’d like to send him a message directly, you can write him a letter here: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/jet-jurgensmeyer.

There’s something quietly powerful about hearing a familiar news voice step into a different kind of spotlight. For more than three decades, Dan Ashley has delivered the evening news to the San Francisco Bay Area with steady authority. But on Press Play Conversations, Ashley revealed another side of himself — not just as a musician, but as a storyteller shaped by memory, optimism, and a lifelong connection to the emotional pull of great songs.

Ashley’s songwriting lives exactly where you’d expect it to for someone who’s spent a career telling real stories. When the conversation turned to his song “Outside Looking In,” he shared a moment from his early twenties that could have easily been a lyric itself: sitting uninvited in a television station lobby with a resume tape in hand, wondering if he belonged there at all. Years later, his face would hang on that very station’s wall. It’s the kind of full-circle story that explains why his music feels grounded rather than performative — it comes from lived experience.

That same sense of reflection carries into “Small Town Nights,” a song Ashley described as less about nostalgia and more about aspiration. Raised in North Carolina before building his life in San Francisco, he writes about hometown memories not as something lost, but as something worth remembering — the freedom of childhood afternoons outdoors, the simplicity of connection before everything became digital noise. With clear nods to artists like John Mellencamp and Tom Petty, Ashley’s writing taps into a tradition of American storytelling rock that values honesty over polish.

Throughout the conversation with The Don and Tina, what stood out most wasn’t just Ashley’s musical influences — though they range comfortably from Mellencamp and Keith Urban to R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and the Rolling Stones — it was his outlook. He spoke openly about optimism as a choice, about refusing to measure success against other people, and about believing there’s “a piece of pie for everyone.” It’s the kind of perspective that feels rare in both media and music today, and it gives his songwriting its emotional center.

There were lighter moments too — stories about early concerts, James Taylor memories from Chapel Hill, and the universal experience of hearing songs like “Jack and Diane” and instantly being transported back to another time in life. That thread — music as a grounding force — became one of the interview’s strongest themes. For Ashley, songs aren’t just entertainment. They’re touchstones.

By the time the conversation wrapped, what became clear is that Dan Ashley isn’t stepping outside his lane by making music. He’s expanding it. The same instinct that makes a great journalist — curiosity, empathy, and a feel for human stories — is exactly what makes his songwriting resonate. On Press Play Conversations, Ashley proved that sometimes the best songs come from people who never stopped paying attention to the world around them.

Catch the FULL interview here:   Dan Ashley Interview: News Anchor Turned Musician | Inspiring Story & Songs Explained - Press Play Radio

Send Dan Ashley a note and let him know what his music means to you: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/dan-ashley

To learn more about Dan Ashley, readers and watchers can visit:
https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/dan-ashley

There’s a certain kind of country voice that doesn’t just carry melody—it carries memory. The kind that feels like it already knows your story before the chorus even arrives. When Buddy Jewell sat down with The Don and Tina on Press Play Conversations, what unfolded wasn’t just another career retrospective—it was a reminder of what authenticity sounds like when it refuses to age out of relevance.

Long before reality television turned into a fast-moving conveyor belt of overnight fame, Jewell stepped onto the stage of Nashville Star and didn’t just win—it overwhelmed the moment. He arrived there after a decade of grinding through Nashville’s demo circuit, singing on more than 4,000 recordings and hearing “no” from nearly every major label in town. That victory didn’t manufacture his career. It revealed it. And if anything, Jewell still talks about the experience like a man who understands exactly how rare lightning really is.

He also understands something else: the music business didn’t just change—it flipped the table. Jewell remembers the pivot from physical records to the digital age not as nostalgia, but as economics. When half a million copies of an album meant something you could hold, measure, and celebrate, it carried weight. Streams? As he joked with a grin, they don’t quite buy what gold records used to. Still, he doesn’t fight the modern landscape—he simply keeps doing what country music has always done best: telling stories that outlast formats.

And sometimes those stories arrive unexpectedly close to home. “Help Pour Out the Rain” wasn’t just a single—it was a conversation with his three-year-old daughter that turned into one of the most emotionally resonant songs of his career. But Jewell’s definition of impact stretches far beyond chart positions. Touring Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan alongside the USO left him changed in a deeper way. Flying into forward operating bases, watching mortar rounds land after performances, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with soldiers the same age as his own son reframed everything. “It was a bigger blessing to me than it was to them,” he said—an artist discovering that service can echo louder than applause.

That perspective follows him into his new music. Inspired by a rain-soaked farewell in Dublin and shaped by collaborations with longtime Nashville players like Trisha Yearwood bandleader Johnny Garcia, Jewell is crafting songs that feel less like product rollouts and more like chapters still being written. There’s no label machine behind him this time. He jokes he’s the record label, the shipping department, and the janitor. But independence looks good on artists who already know who they are.

If anything surprised listeners during the conversation, it wasn’t Jewell’s reverence for classic country influences like Alabama—it was learning that the same voice shaped by Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins once learned guitar chasing “Stairway to Heaven,” and spent teenage nights blasting Kiss in Memphis arenas. That range explains everything about him: tradition without boundaries, faith without pretense, and a career still powered by curiosity.

Even now, decades after his breakout moment, Buddy Jewell sings like someone who never mistook fame for purpose. And maybe that’s why his voice still lands where country music lives best—in the quiet space between heartbreak and hope.

Watch and Listen to the full interview here: 

Won The First Season of Nashville Star and Performed In A War Zone: Buddy Jewell - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Buddy Jewell, visit his Mosaic profile:
https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/buddy-jewell

Send Buddy a note here:
https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/buddy-jewell

Morgan Myles doesn’t enter a conversation so much as she pours into it — quick-witted, self-aware, emotionally unguarded, and carrying the kind of voice that makes even casual banter feel like the opening line of a great American song. When she returned to Press Play Radio Conversations with The Don and Tina, the exchange moved the same way her music does: funny one minute, bruised the next, then suddenly wide open and soaring.

She was speaking on the eve of her album release, surrounded by the beautiful chaos that seems to follow artists who still insist on making things the hard way — with instinct, obsession, and heart. There were hundreds of battery-operated candles to wrangle, a missing shipment of donated wine to track down, and an album release party hanging just over the horizon. It was the kind of scene that feels almost too on-the-nose for a singer like Myles, whose work lives in the tension between glamour and unraveling, polish and pain.

That tension runs straight through Laced, the new album at the center of the conversation. For Myles, this isn’t just a record rollout. It’s the aftermath of a life split open and stitched back together in public. She spoke candidly about creating a visual companion piece for the album — a 45-minute short film built from the emotional architecture of the songs — while her real-life engagement was collapsing in the background. The ring in the film was her real ring. The original ending had to be reshot because life, as she put it, no longer ended in a wedding.

That kind of emotional overlap — where art stops being performance and starts becoming evidence — is what gives Myles her weight. There’s no alter ego here, no glossy persona to hide behind. She said it plainly: her brand has always been “completely real.” In an era built on filters, personas, and content churn, that almost feels rebellious.

And maybe that’s why her songs land the way they do.

When the conversation turned to Love Is Lonesome, Myles peeled back the song’s emotional core with the kind of honesty most artists save for memoirs. The track, written with Gary Nichols, isn’t just about heartbreak in the obvious sense. It’s about the constant ache of wanting something essential, something fragile, something that can heal you or hollow you out depending on whose hands it’s in. She described love as a force that can’t be bought, can’t be faked, can’t be taken for granted — a longing that can turn manipulative, abusive, beautiful, or redemptive. In her hands, even a title like Love Is Lonesome doesn’t read as defeat. It reads as testimony.

That perspective was shaped, in part, by the road to this album. Myles wrote across Nashville, Austin, and especially Muscle Shoals, where she found herself reconnected to something deeper than industry mechanics. She spoke about the town with near-religious reverence — not as a brand name, but as a reminder that music can still be soul-first, commerce second. In Muscle Shoals, she found people who were still protecting the sacred part of songwriting. You could hear in her voice that she needed that. Maybe a lot of artists do.

If Laced sounds lived-in, that’s because it was. Myles and her collaborators wrote roughly 80 songs for the project, with around 15 born in Muscle Shoals alone. The record itself was cut in Los Angeles with a cast of players pulled from across the map, including Nashville, Austin, and beyond. It was assembled the old-school way, with musicians in rooms, instincts being trusted, songs being shaped for feel as much as structure. Even the sequencing was treated like an art form. Myles explained that the order wasn’t just about narrative but about sonic flow — about how the ear travels through a record, how tension builds and releases, how a listener stays inside the emotional weather of it.

That reverence for songs — for what they mean, how they breathe, how they hold memory — also surfaced in her cover of America’s Sister Golden Hair. Slowed down and reimagined through her soul-country lens, the song becomes less of a classic-rock staple and more of a confession whispered after midnight. For Myles, it wasn’t just an iconic song worth revisiting. It mirrored her own life. The lyric about not being ready for the altar cut differently for someone living through the unraveling of an engagement while trying to keep moving forward. Her version honors the song’s history while making it ache in a new way, and the fact that America’s Jerry Beckley championed the rendition only deepens the poetic symmetry.

Still, what made the interview linger wasn’t just the music. It was the worldview beneath it.

Myles spoke with a kind of frustrated clarity about modern life — about social media, negativity, disconnection, and the exhausting demand that artists now be not only musicians, but full-time marketers, editors, content creators, and algorithm whisperers. She joked about viral bulldog videos and random TikToks outperforming actual artistry, but beneath the humor was a familiar exhaustion. Today’s artist is expected to do everything and somehow still remain inspired. Somewhere between rehearsal, travel, posting, editing, and self-promotion, the actual making of music gets squeezed thinner and thinner.

And yet Myles remains stubbornly committed to the thing itself.

She talked about Chile with the kind of awe that reminds you why artists endure any of this at all. Unsure of what to expect, she arrived in South America nervous about whether anyone would know her music. Instead, 700 people showed up. The room sold out. Fans sang back to her. For Myles, it was more than a successful show — it was a spiritual correction. Proof that the soul of music still matters, that audiences still recognize the real thing when they hear it, that the noise hasn’t drowned out the signal just yet.

That same spirit fuels the way she talks about country music, and about legacy more broadly. She isn’t interested in the shallow end of fame. She believes in earning it. In learning from those who came before. In suffering enough to understand what a song can carry. She referenced the old Nashville proving grounds, the humility they forced on artists, the way that process once shaped singers before they ever stepped into the spotlight. To Myles, something valuable is being lost in the shortcut era. Not just craft, but respect.

And still, she doesn’t come off bitter. She comes off convicted.

That distinction matters.

Because even in her sharpest observations — about ego, about AI, about online culture, about the shrinking attention span of modern audiences — Myles keeps circling back to the same idea: connection. Real human connection. Music that reminds people they are not alone. Stories that make people feel seen. Songs that don’t just soundtrack a moment, but rescue one.

By the end of the conversation, you got the sense that Morgan Myles is still fighting for something bigger than a chart position or a trend cycle. She’s fighting for the soul inside the machine. For the part of music that still bleeds, still comforts, still tells the truth when everything else is optimized to distract.

That may not be the easiest road in 2026. But listening to her talk — and listening to her sing — it feels like the only one she was ever meant to take.

To watch the full interview: Morgan Myles No Filters, the RAW Truth About Love & Music - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Morgan: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/morgan-myles 

To write Morgan a letter: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/morgan-myles 

Some artists arrive polished. Others arrive possessed.

Bec Lauder feels like the latter.

By the time Press Play Conversations caught up with Bec Lauder, the frontwoman of Bec Lauder and The Noise was already sounding less like an emerging artist and more like someone in the middle of becoming exactly who she was meant to be. Her album The Vessel isn’t just a collection of alternative rock songs — it’s a messy, magnetic coming-of-age document about heartbreak, self-discovery, timing, and the kind of emotional collisions that leave permanent marks.

And Bec Lauder doesn’t hide any of it.

“I’m the only lyricist,” she says. “My music is really just almost like documentation of my life.”

That much is obvious the second you step into The Vessel. The album opens with “Bent Up,” a track that wasn’t originally meant to lead the record. But somewhere near the finish line, Lauder and her band realized the songs needed to do more than exist beside each other — they needed to speak to each other. What emerged was a loose but potent emotional arc: the spark of infatuation, the rush of becoming, the confusion of attachment, the ache of unraveling.

To Lauder, “Bent Up” represents the crush — the fun, the bounce, the first spark. From there, The Vessel grows teeth.

It helps that the story behind the record is as cinematic as the songs themselves. After moving to New York, Lauder found herself living in a house full of musicians. Sunday jam sessions turned into a creative awakening. She had never seriously made music before then. Then suddenly, everything changed. Songs poured out. Life sped up. Love entered the frame. So did heartbreak. And somewhere inside that chaos, Bec Lauder and The Noise began to take shape.

That origin story gives The Vessel its pulse. The record isn’t trying to sound lived-in — it is lived-in. Half of it was born from one version of the band, while the rest came later, after the dust settled and the songs got sharper. “Mysterious Boy,” one of the album’s standouts, belongs to that second wave. It floats on a hypnotic riff, sways with alt-rock cool, then sneaks in a little punk snarl just when it needs to. It’s beautiful, yes — but it also refuses to behave.

That tension is part of what makes Lauder so compelling. She can evoke softness and danger in the same breath. One minute there are shades of dream-pop vulnerability; the next, there’s a flash of Joan Jett bravado or the ghost of ’90s alternative royalty running through the amplifiers. She doesn’t imitate those influences. She absorbs them, then throws them back out as something younger, stranger, and more instinctive.

And live, that instinct becomes undeniable.

Even in casual footage and imperfect captures, Lauder commands attention in the way true frontwomen do: not by demanding it, but by making it impossible to look anywhere else. Audiences don’t drift toward the bar. They lock in. They watch. They react. They lean closer. It’s the kind of stage presence that can’t be manufactured and doesn’t need explanation.

That power is reaching beyond New York now. In one of the interview’s most revealing moments, Lauder recounts a whirlwind run through Paris. Her first show there drew about 15 people. On her next trip, she sold out two booked shows, got directly booked for two more, and ended the week playing to 700 people. That kind of momentum doesn’t come from hype. It comes from people seeing something real and telling other people they need to see it too.

Word of mouth still matters when the music hits hard enough.

And Bec Lauder’s music hits hard because it comes from a place deeper than performance. During the conversation, she reads from a notebook gifted to her by the very person who inspired much of The Vessel. It’s a quietly stunning moment — part manifesto, part diary entry, part artistic mission statement. In it, she writes about stumbling forward, searching for love and inspiration everywhere, chasing freedom, and believing there is “unfathomable beauty” inside even the idea of it.

That’s the key to Lauder, really. She’s not just writing songs about love or pain or growth. She’s trying to capture the magic hidden inside all of it.

“I think there’s still magic,” she says. “None of the magic is gone.”

For someone who admits she was once a deeply depressed kid — someone who felt burdened by how much she saw and understood — that perspective doesn’t feel naive. It feels earned. Bec Lauder isn’t ignoring the darkness. She’s choosing not to let it have the final word.

That choice is all over her music.

What’s especially exciting is that The Vessel may only be the beginning. Lauder and her band have since found what she calls the “final form” of The Noise — a tighter, more fully realized version of the group built around the chemistry and force of the three women at its core. If The Vessel was the sound of discovery, the next record may be the sound of full possession. Lauder hints that the new material is stronger than what came before, and if that’s true, the ceiling may be nowhere in sight.

You can already hear it happening: a young artist stepping into her own mythology in real time.

In an era obsessed with trends, algorithms, and disposable identity, Bec Lauder feels thrillingly human. Emotional without being precious. poetic without losing grit. Stylish without sacrificing substance. She doesn’t just sing about transformation — she sounds like someone living through it, in public, with the amps turned all the way up.

And that makes her dangerous in all the best ways.

Check out the full interview here!:  She Wasn’t Trained… She Was POSSESSED! The Rise of Bec Lauder - Press Play Radio

Learn more about Bec Lauder and The Noise on her Mosaic profile.

Fans can also send Bec a message directly through Press Play Artist Letter.

If you want, I can also turn this into a shorter magazine-style web editorial version, a Facebook caption, and a video blurb to match it.

Some bands arrive polished. Autumn Academy arrives real.

When Press Play Conversations sat down with Brandon, Jose, and Cromer, there was no script, no filter — just a band that still believes music should feel something. In a world leaning hard into automation, Autumn Academy stands firmly in the messier, more meaningful space of human creation.

Their discovery story says it all. One TikTok clip turned into a deep dive, and suddenly the songs weren’t just playing — they were landing. Tracks like “Comfortable Grave,” “Another Tomorrow,” “Reset,” and “Burning Up” don’t just sound good — they evolve. You can hear the band getting sharper, heavier, more intentional with every release.

But they don’t run from their past. They embrace it.

Older songs, as Brandon put it, are “time capsules.” Not something to fix — something to learn from. That mindset is the backbone of their growth. No shortcuts, no overnight reinvention — just steady evolution built on chemistry that finally clicked after years of revolving lineups and trial-and-error.

That chemistry shows up most in how they write.

This isn’t a band throwing lyrics together because they rhyme. Pages stack up. Ideas get tested. Lines get rewritten until they hit right. Because for Autumn Academy, the listener matters — and every word has to earn its place.

You hear that care in their sound — a collision of melody, aggression, and atmosphere shaped by influences like Metallica, Deftones, Tool, My Chemical Romance, and Bring Me The Horizon. They understand dynamics. They know a breakdown only hits if the emotion leading into it is real.

“Reset” is proof of that. Born from a simple bass idea Cromer was looping, it turned into something bigger — a moment where the room clicked and the song built itself piece by piece. That’s not something you can fake. That’s what bands chase.

And then there’s the conversation that matters right now — AI.

Autumn Academy’s take was smarter than the usual all-or-nothing panic. They understand the difference between AI as a tool and AI as a replacement for art. Using it to spark ideas, find a word, or break through writer’s block? That’s no different than using any other resource. It’s part of the process.

But letting AI create the music? That’s where they draw the line.

Brandon and Jose framed it as a matter of intent — inspiration versus substitution. AI can help someone experiment, especially younger creators still figuring out their voice. It can open doors. It can make creativity feel accessible.

But it shouldn’t replace the work.

Because when it does, something gets lost.

Cromer said it best, cutting through all the nuance in one line:
“I fucking hate it.”

And honestly, that tension — between possibility and purity — is exactly where the music industry is sitting right now.

Autumn Academy doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. But they know what they stand for. Their music comes from real frustration, real influence, real moments — like the anger behind “Burning Up,” which calls out manipulation and exploitation hiding behind religion. It’s not vague. It’s not safe. It’s honest.

And that honesty carries through everything they do.

Offstage, they’re exactly what you’d hope — a band that can go from deep conversations about songwriting to laughing about blown in-ear monitors, bad sound guys, and beat-up cars with cassette adapters hanging out of the dash. That balance matters. It keeps the music grounded.

Even their name feels intentional. Autumn — a season of change, color, and emotion. Academy — something structured, something built. Together, it fits: a band rooted in feeling, but committed to getting better every time they show up.

Autumn Academy isn’t chasing perfection.

They’re chasing something real.

And right now, that might be the most rebellious thing a band can do.

Watch the full interview here:   Autumn Academy Is What Happens When Music Stays HUMAN - Press Play Radio

Learn more about Autumn Academy: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/autumn-academy
Write them a letter: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/autumn-academy

The hair is shorter, the jeans a little more lived-in, and the stages swapped from mirrored platforms to wide-open festivals. But the sound? The sound still hits like glam thunder.

Patrick Stone and Richie Onari of Sweet joined The Don and Dean Baldwin in a candid Press Play interview that quickly transformed from a chat into a mission statement. At the center of the conversation? The new single, “Little Miracle.” And from the moment Dean dropped the needle, one thing was clear — Sweet isn’t clinging to nostalgia. They’re evolving the DNA of one of rock’s most underrated juggernauts.

“We wanted to show Sweet thinking in the future,” Richie said, explaining the sonic direction. “This is the 21st-century Sweet.” With a lineup forged under the blessing — and dying wish — of original bassist and co-founder Steve Priest, this version of Sweet isn’t about tribute. It’s about continuation. “We’re out here doing it for him,” Patrick added. “How can you sleep at night without fulfilling that request?”

The song itself — rich with harmonies, power-chord precision, and a touch of punky defiance — feels less like a comeback and more like a rightful reclamation. “That’s what was so amazing about the original Sweet,” Richie continued. “There were no limits. Horns? Synths? Grit? Do it all.” And they are. But make no mistake: this is not a nostalgia act. This is a band embracing its legacy while refusing to be confined by it.

Dean lit a fuse under the conversation when he brought up the firestorm surrounding legacy acts — particularly when old members aren’t part of the picture. Patrick didn’t flinch. “If it hadn’t been for Steve’s wishes, we wouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “This version is the one he launched. We were his partners, not his side guys.”

The band talked openly about the other iteration of Sweet — the UK version fronted by original guitarist Andy Scott — with respect, but with a clear focus on their own path. “We hail Andy Scott,” Patrick offered. “But we’re carrying on what Steve started in America.”

And that American story? It’s loud. It’s proud. It’s real rock and roll. From South America with Journey to the Canadian provinces and on down through Nashville and the Dells, Sweet is touring like a band with something to prove — and a legacy to preserve. Upcoming shows include dates with April Wine, UB40, Bachman Turner Overdrive, and Missing Persons. They’ll hit Toronto’s Sotheby’s Stadium and play the Unity Peace and Freedom Festival before circling back to California and the Midwest.

The guys lit up when talking harmonies — the not-so-secret sauce behind songs like “Fox on the Run.” “We’ve got four lead vocalists up there every night,” Patrick said. “We were coached to do it properly by Steve himself.” Richie added, “When Dave Schultz laid down the high part on ‘Little Miracle,’ it was magic. He’s part of this band, and fans hear that Sweet signature harmony instantly.”

And they don’t shy away from those original songs. In fact, they treat them like holy scripture. “We know people associate memories with those songs,” Dean said, “and for a lot of us, Sweet was the gateway drug to rock and roll.” Patrick shared his own, childhood memory of flipping through his sister’s record collection — Desolation Boulevard, Tattoo You, Supertramp — and waking up to “some more Sweet” only to discover it was Queen. That lineage? It’s real. And Sweet helped write the blueprint.

Richie even shared the surreal moment of representing the band at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 red carpet — standing alone in the Kodak Theatre when the entire cast took the stage… to “Fox on the Run.” “It could’ve been any song,” he said. “But they chose that one. And in that moment, Sweet was back on top.”

For the skeptics clinging to the past? Dean summed it up best: “Let bands carry the torch. Let fans decide.” And if “Little Miracle” is any indicator, fans are deciding loud and clear.

Watch the full interview at: Steve Priest’s Final Blessing… The Sweet’s Emotional Comeback Will Leave You Speechless - Press Play Radio

Learn more about Sweet’s music, tour dates, and more — at: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/the-sweet
Listen for “Little Miracle” now spinning on Press Play Radio.

Write a letter to The Sweet:  https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/the-sweet 

Savannah Dean Reeves doesn’t write songs so much as she lets them happen to her. They arrive quietly—sometimes as a single word, sometimes as a restless thought looping in her head while she sits alone in her car—and by the time she realizes what’s happening, the emotion has already turned into melody. That instinctive, almost surrendered approach to songwriting is what gives Reeves her edge:C a voice that feels lived-in, a delivery that carries both vulnerability and warning, and a tone that suggests she’s still discovering just how powerful she really is.

On Press Play Conversations, Reeves comes across the same way her music sounds—wa#CountrySingerSongwriterrm, grounded, and quietly formidable. She laughs easily, shrugs off stories of drunken hecklers with grace, and talks about songwriting as therapy rather than performance. But beneath the easy charm is an artist who knows exactly why she’s here. When she describes opening for Easton Corbin and feeling the weight of a receptive crowd leaning into her songs, she admits she cried after stepping offstage—not out of nerves, but out of recognition. That feeling, she says, is one she never wants to lose. And listening to her talk, you believe her.

Reeves’ catalog—songs like Get Me Every Time, How About You, and Bet On Me—is rooted in self-awareness. These aren’t breakup songs that cast blame outward; they’re inward-looking, reflective, and often uncomfortably honest. Get Me Every Time circles red flags and attraction patterns with the clarity of hindsight, while How About You plays out like a conversation someone rehearses in their head long before a relationship actually ends. She wrote it before the breakup that would eventually inspire it, unknowingly foreshadowing her own exit. That kind of emotional intuition can’t be manufactured—it’s either there or it isn’t.

Vocally, Reeves is where things get interesting. There’s a growl in her delivery, a low-end grit that sneaks in unexpectedly, making her sound tougher than she looks and deeper than she speaks. It’s the kind of voice that feels tailor-made for a louder room than Nashville sometimes allows—a voice that could sit comfortably next to Pat Benatar, Bad Company, or even a fuzzed-out Blondie record without losing its identity. Reeves herself acknowledges it: she sings deeper than she talks, and live performance has shaped her sound just as much as the studio ever could.

Her influences tell the story. Miranda Lambert lit the spark early—so early, in fact, that Reeves was charging her parents twenty dollars for living-room concerts before she was a teenager. These days, she’s drawn to artists who blur lines: Lainey Wilson’s stage presence, Nate Smith’s rock-leaning country, Elle King’s refusal to stay in a box. She listens to Bad Company and Halestorm, not as guilty pleasures, but as possibilities. And when Reeves talks about entering a “new era” of writing—happier songs, more self-focused songs—it doesn’t feel like a reinvention so much as an expansion.

What makes Savannah Dean Reeves compelling right now isn’t just where she’s been—it’s the sense that she’s standing at the edge of something louder, freer, and less defined. She’s an artist who understands that songs don’t need a plan, only honesty. That growth doesn’t mean abandoning your roots, and that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is trust the voice that shows up when you stop trying to control it.

Somewhere between country confessionals and rock-tinged resolve, Savannah Dean Reeves is finding her stride—and if she ever decides to lean fully into that growl, the room might not know what hit it.

To watch the full interview: The Kind of Country Voice We Thought Was Gone… Until Now on Press Play Radio Conversations Show # 7 - Press Play Radio

To learn more about Savannah Dean Reeves, visit:

https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/savannah-dean-reeves

To write Savannah a letter: https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/savannah-dean-reeves

 Steven Rosen on Eddie Van Halen, Lost Mystique, and Why Storytelling Still Matters

Steven Rosen didn’t become a music journalist chasing fame. He chased the room — that charged, quiet space where music stops being sound and becomes a person sitting across from you. On Press Play Radio Conversations, Rosen joins Don “The Don” Thatcher, SiriusXM veteran Dean Baldwin, and Press Play CEO Tina Houser for a sprawling, candid reflection on rock journalism, creative intimacy, and what we lost when everything became available all the time.

Rosen has written more than 700 articles for publications like Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, and Guitar World, and is the author of Tone Chaser, his deeply personal account of friendship and fracture with Edward Van Halen. But Rosen doesn’t talk like a man cataloging a résumé. He talks like someone still slightly stunned he was allowed inside the story at all.

The interview that lit the fuse

Rosen knew what he wanted to do the first time he ever interviewed an artist — Joe Cocker, in 1972. He was hitchhiking across the UK, calling publicists from London phone booths with nothing but nerve and curiosity. He admits he wasn’t ready. He admits the interview wasn’t great. But sitting across from Cocker — a man already etched into history by Woodstock — changed something.

“I knew I needed more of this,” Rosen says. Not success. Not status. The moment.

That instinct — chasing connection rather than proximity — is what carried Rosen forward.

Jeff Beck and the mercy that made a career

Every journalist has a nightmare. Rosen lived his early.

Interviewing Jeff Beck for Guitar Player, Rosen realized — after the conversation — that he’d never hit record. Thirty minutes gone. Career over, he thought.

Beck didn’t explode. He didn’t dismiss him. He told Rosen to come back the next day and do it again.

That second interview became Rosen’s first cover story.

It’s a small moment with a big echo: greatness doesn’t always need to flex. Sometimes it just opens the door again.

Journalism as a “filter,” not a transcript

Dean Baldwin frames one of the night’s most important ideas: great music writing isn’t transcription — it’s filtration. Anyone can publish words now. What matters is perspective, the subtle shaping that lets readers feel the artist rather than just read them.

Rosen agrees. That “filter” became critical when writing Tone Chaser. Writing about Eddie Van Halen wasn’t just documenting a legend — it meant navigating friendship, decline, addiction, resentment, and love without turning vulnerability into spectacle.

Rosen waited 17 years after his relationship with Eddie ended before writing the book. The delay wasn’t caution. It was respect.

“The only way to understand Edward,” Rosen says, “was to include the fragile moments.”

When the pedestal cracks

Asked whether knowing artists personally ever kills the magic, Rosen doesn’t hedge.

“Yes,” he says.

By the early ’90s, Rosen felt Eddie change — becoming colder, harder, less kind. The reverence Rosen once carried faded into hurt and resentment. It wasn’t betrayal in the tabloid sense. It was something quieter and more painful: watching someone you loved become someone you no longer recognized.

Baldwin relates from the modern side — how befriending artists you once idolized alters the fan experience. You gain access. You lose mystery.

Rosen calls it “the great conundrum.” Journalism gives you backstage passes and free records — and quietly takes away the ritual that made them sacred.

Van Halen, heartbreak, and the path of least resistance

Rosen’s insights into Van Halen avoid the usual camps. David Lee Roth didn’t leave as a villain. Eddie didn’t rage as a cartoon tyrant. What Rosen heard was hurt — especially after 1984, when the band was at its commercial peak.

Eddie recognized Roth’s importance. He recognized Roth’s talent. And when Roth left, Eddie felt disrespected more than defeated.

One of the most revealing moments Rosen shares: Eddie asking him, seriously, to “go find me a singer.” Rosen thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.

Rosen believes Eddie later returned to Roth and Sammy Hagar not out of nostalgia, but necessity. Fans would accept only those two. Eddie, often overwhelmed by the machinery around him, chose the path of least resistance — even when it wasn’t artistically clean.

The internet flattened the gods

When the conversation turns to modern media, Rosen is blunt. Journalism has been democratized — and homogenized. Where magazines once needed writers and stories felt rare, now everything is available instantly, endlessly.

Mystique didn’t survive abundance.

“You can find eight million stories about Edward Van Halen online,” Rosen says. “And the more you know, the less legendary it feels.”

Back then, one great magazine piece mattered because it had to. Today, even Rolling Stone struggles to mean what it once did.

AI, imitation, and the missing human

Rosen doesn’t rail against technology — but AI crosses a line. He tells a story about hearing AI-generated theme music that sounded good enough to pass.

“That’s what scared me,” he says.

AI can mimic style. It cannot replicate experience. It wasn’t there. It didn’t live it.

As Don Thatcher puts it: standing in front of the Eiffel Tower is different than faking it with a green screen. Once you know it’s fake, the meaning disappears.

Why stories still matter

Late in the conversation, Baldwin invites Rosen to preserve his stories inside Mosaic, Press Play’s storytelling platform. Rosen’s response is quiet, grateful — not performative.

At this stage of life, Rosen isn’t chasing relevance. His bills are paid. His book is written. His archive exists — including an audiobook version of Tone Chaser that features Eddie Van Halen’s actual voice from rare interviews, letting listeners hear the difference between Interview Eddie and Conversation Eddie.

That distinction may be Rosen’s true legacy.

In a world drowning in content, Steven Rosen reminds us why rock music mattered in the first place:
Someone was there.
It really happened.
And the story still has a pulse.

Learn more about Steve Rosen by visiting his Mosaic Page: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/steve-rosen 

Full Podcast Interview will is available now:  Steven Rosen on Eddie Van Halen, lost mystique, and why storytelling still matters on PPRC # 6 - Press Play Radio

Sitting down with Press Play Radio Conversation’s Hosts The Don and Tina, the Canadian rock vocalist offered up a conversation that was equal parts grit, gratitude, and unapologetic truth. Known for fronting Saints & Sinners and Sword in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Hughes isn’t trying to relive the past—he’s here to honor it, build on it, and rip open a few chords while he’s at it.

“I never left music,” Rick says early in the interview, voice weathered but passionate. “I just stopped doing it for the business. I play because I love it. I play because I have to.”

That hunger is what defines Hughes—not just as a musician, but as a soul who refuses to fade quietly. During the chat, he reflects on Montreal’s metal scene, early shows that were bare-knuckle survival, and how the music business, even at its best, chews up the honest ones. “Back then,” he laughs, “you didn’t have Pro Tools or Auto-Tune to hide behind. You had to deliver. Every damn night.”

Deliver he did. Whether tearing through the melodic metal of Sword or the sleazier, blues-tinged rock of Saints & Sinners, Hughes had a voice that could both caress and kill. “Rick’s voice was one of those that just cut through,” Don offers, recalling seeing him live. “You couldn’t ignore it. It wasn’t just big—it was believable.”

But Rick doesn’t live in nostalgia. The interview is peppered with talk of new material, spiritual shifts, and what it means to create in a world that barely stops to listen. “I’m not trying to compete,” he says plainly. “I’m trying to connect.”

That theme—connection over competition—is woven into every story he tells. About fan letters that arrived decades after the records dropped. About new generations discovering Sword through streaming. About the energy that still fills his chest when he steps onstage—even if the crowd is smaller, the amps louder, and the world a little more cynical.

Tina calls it out perfectly: “You’ve got this quiet resilience. It’s not about proving anything—it’s about living it.”

Rick nods. “Music was never a career to me. It was a calling. It still is.”

For fans of classic rock, melodic metal, or just voices that have lived through the storm and still sing about the sky, Rick Hughes is not to be missed. His story isn't about fading out—it's about staying lit, no matter how dark the room gets.

Catch the full interview on Home - Press Play Radio at 5:00pm Eastern Monday March 16th, 2026.  You can watch at your leisure.   

For more on Rick Hughes, including exclusive music, photos, and his full artist profile, visit: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/rick-hughes

Write a Letter To Rick! 

https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/rick-hughes

In a world obsessed with algorithm-fed music feeds and plastic pop choruses, Steve Conte is still chasing something real — something felt. The singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bona fide rock survivor dropped by Press Play Radio for a raw and winding conversation with The Don, diving deep into the anatomy of a song, the madness of the Dolls, and the unpredictable genius of collaborators like Andy Partridge and Michael Monroe. It wasn’t an interview. It was a living mixtape.

Conte’s newest record, The Concrete Jangle, feels like a vintage jukebox cracked open with a crowbar — power pop harmonies, AM radio ghosts, punk sneer, and a splash of Motown. And many of its standout tracks, including “Shoot Out the Stars,” “One Last Bell,” and “All Tied Up,” began not in studios but on Zoom calls with Partridge (of XTC fame), proving that modern technology doesn’t have to water down old-school magic.

Their process? Conte would pitch a title — “Shoot Out the Stars” being the winner that day — and Partridge would let the visuals flow. "He hears pictures," Steve said. "He played an F add9 chord and said, ‘Sounds like a bell.’" That’s how "One Last Bell" was born, a melancholic gem built on a haunting nursery rhyme cadence and layered with lyrics that swing between the gothic and the surreal. A bell. A walkabout. A final trip. Quasimodo even makes a cameo.

But Steve isn't just a sonic painter. He’s a craftsman of feeling. “All Tied Up” is an example. A deceptively upbeat jam with a Motown soul and Beatles-esque harmony, it’s a letter to all the men (including himself) who’ve kept love on life support out of fear or guilt. “Do the right thing,” he says, with zero preach and full humility. “Let her go.”

The chat veered beautifully into the past too. Conte reminisced on his long-standing run with Finnish rock outlaw Michael Monroe — frontman, circus act, soul brother. “He’s probably the best frontman I’ve ever worked with,” Steve said, eyes twinkling even through the audio. They’ve jammed with Slash, opened for Guns N’ Roses, toured with Alice Cooper, and yes, once had an amp blow up mid-song while Alice shoved a mic in Steve’s face.

And then there were the Dolls. New York Dolls, to be exact. Six chaotic years, one surreal start: Royal Festival Hall, Morrissey-curated Meltdown Festival, Chrissie Hynde backstage complimenting his playing (and maybe silently judging his leather pants). “It was trainwrecks all over the place,” Steve laughed. “David [Johansen] threw his arm around me and said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Lot of trainwrecks.’ He said, ‘Hey, it’s what they expect. It’s the Dolls.’”

It’s that ethos — that loose, untamed, perfectly imperfect energy — that Steve Conte continues to bottle, decades after CBGB’s locked its doors and mall rats started wearing Ramones shirts without knowing a single lyric. He’s a walking testament to rock ‘n’ roll’s emotional currency. Not nostalgia — presence. Not polish — pulse.

There’s new music on the way. He’s wrapping another record with Monroe. He’s sitting on three unfinished tracks with Partridge. He’s playing shows. He’s signing records at the merch stand, no matter how sweaty.

“I’m not one of those guys,” he said. “I’m always down to meet the fans. Make your own Michael Monroe memory.”

With artists like Steve Conte still writing with heart, playing with soul, and talking with honesty, maybe — just maybe — rock and roll isn’t dead. Maybe it just grew up, learned a few chords, and never stopped chasing the tension before the resolve.

Follow Steve Conte at steveconte.com, Bandcamp, or wherever you spin your vinyl heart out. And if he’s rolling through your town, get the ticket. Make your memory.

Watch the full conversation with Steve Conte on Press Play Radio with remastered audio on: https://pressplayradio.com/videos/steve-conte-on-the-new-york-dolls-songwriting-with-xtc-s-andy-partridge-rock-survival-on-pprc-63

For more on Steve Conte: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/steve-conte

There’s a calm that lingers behind the eyes of a legend who's lived through the chaos of metal’s wildest years—and Michael Weikath has that calm. Calling in from Berlin, the founding guitarist of Helloween joined Press Play Radio’s Don and Tina mid-rehearsal, flanked by century-old architecture, a shopping center, and a mission: to fine-tune guitar parts with bandmate Sascha Gerstner before the rest of the band arrives. “We’re sorting out the ‘what ifs’ before the singers show up,” he said casually, like it’s all just another Tuesday in power metal paradise.

Since Helloween’s official formation in 1984 (though it had roots in earlier Kai Hansen-led lineups), the band has become a cornerstone of European metal. Yet for Weikath, it’s never been about coasting. “We were rehearsing every day except Sundays,” he said. “On Sundays, we just got drunk.” It wasn’t all beer and distortion, though. They were obsessed with the logistics—contracts, distributors, lessons learned from bands like Lucifer’s Friend, who suffered from poor record distribution despite having the chops to be Germany’s answer to Queen.

Now decades into the game, Weikath is still as sharp and cheeky as ever. When Don reeled off a few of the band’s accolades—millions of records sold, platinum certifications—Weikath playfully undercut him. “Not us,” he deadpanned, pointing the credit toward bandmates. But even with his humility, there’s no denying the band’s impact. They helped define melodic power metal. They helped invent the big, European, cinematic metal sound—symphonic but aggressive, sweet but savage.

So how did it all begin for him? “I was twelve,” he told Tina, without hesitation. His musical gateway drug? The Beatles. He was obsessed. “She Loves You” lit the spark, but it was the sonic madness of Helter Skelter that pushed him toward distortion. “I wanted a guitar that sounded expensive,” he said, laughing. “They gave me a plastic saxophone, melodica, piano... but I just wanted to play rock and roll guitar.”

Eventually, he got that guitar—an acoustic one in 1974, followed by electric dreams and lessons his mother insisted on. “She said, ‘You’ll just leave it in the corner unless I make you take lessons.’ So I did. But I always wanted to plug in and use a pick.”

Tina, ever the heart of Press Play, leaned into the personal. “I love knowing how people actually became rock stars,” she said. Michael didn’t disappoint. He’s full of stories, and when he speaks, it’s clear that while the volume might have been cranked for most of his life, his feet stayed planted. He still geeks out over other bands—like Malice, whose debut album In the Beginning became a sonic blueprint. “We wanted to sound like that,” he said. “You can hear it in ‘Savior of the World’ on our new record. Totally Malice-inspired.”

Don couldn’t help but note the full circle of it all. Michael Wagener—who had worked with Malice, the Scorpions, and countless others—helped capture that exact sound. Weikath nodded, reminiscing about Wagener’s long-running chemistry with German artists like Klaus Meine and early Scorpions demos. “It all kind of ties together, doesn’t it?”

From plastic saxophones to platinum records, from Beatles fandom to defining an entire genre, Michael Weikath’s journey is part fairytale, part masterclass in obsession, and 100% authentic. Even now, preparing for another tour, he’s dissecting guitar parts, arranging harmonies, and preparing for another go at raising hell on stage with Helloween.

As the interview wound down, it was clear—Weikath isn’t just a shredder. He’s a historian, a craftsman, and most of all, a fan. He’s still in it for the sound. For the stories. For the legacy. And if that legacy started at twelve with a Beatles record… well, that’s just rock and roll poetry.

Be sure to check out their latest hit, This Is Tokyo, out now! 

For more on Helloween, tour dates, news, and their latest release, visit: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/helloween

See the full conversation with Michael Weikath on Press Play Radio (Audio Has Been Remasted): 

From Beatles Fan to Power Metal Legend: Michael Weikath Reveals the Moment That Changed Everything - Press Play Radio

For more on Michael Weikath: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/michael-weikath

Written by Tina Houser (Full Interview Available Now on (Home - Press Play Radio)

Some conversations don’t end — they fade out, like the last sustained chord of a song that hangs in the air just long enough to remind you why you were listening in the first place.

That’s the energy Jeremy Calloway brings to Press Play Radio Conversations. No overstatement. No forced mythology. Just a musician who knows who he is, where he’s been, and how to show up when the red light turns on.

As the episode winds down, Don — The Don — does what he does best: keeps it loose, keeps it human. There’s no grand goodbye, just gratitude and an open invitation. We’ll have you back. And you believe it. Because Calloway fits here — in a space built for artists who still respect the craft and the connection.

Tina, Press Play’s CEO and steady center, slips in with the kind of casual affirmation that says everything without saying too much. No polish needed. No performance required. This is what real conversations sound like when the walls come down and the music does the heavy lifting.

Then Jeremy steps to the mic.

Simple. Clean. Confident.

“Hey everybody, my name is Jeremy Calloway and you’re listening to Press Play Radio.”

And again — this time for Press Play Conversations — the delivery lands just as effortlessly. No hype. No strain. Just a voice that sounds like it belongs exactly where it is.

It’s a small moment, technically — a sign-off, a recording cue, a quiet perfect from Tina before the stop button is hit. But that’s where the truth lives. In the in-between. In the unscripted seconds where artists reveal themselves without realizing it.

Jeremy Calloway doesn’t chase the spotlight. He doesn’t need to. He shows up, says what matters, and lets the rest resonate.

And that’s what Press Play Conversations is really about — creating space for musicians to be heard, not marketed. To be present, not packaged.

The tape stops. The moment lingers.

And somewhere between “be safe out there” and “we’ll be back,” you’re already waiting for the next track to drop.

To learn more about Jeremy: https://mosaic.pressplay.me/profiles/jeremy-calloway

To write Jeremey a Letter:  https://pressplay.me/artist-letter/jeremy-calloway