LP
Ryan JayMusician LP will be happy if they never have to play another drive-in show. The 40-year-old singer has performed for a lot of audiences all over the world, but couldn’t get used to car horns instead of applause at the multiple drive-in shows they did over the pandemic.
“We’re not meant to sing to f—ing cars,” LP tells Billboard. “But I feel like people enjoyed it and they got to feel like they were doing something again.”
Throughout the fall, LP has been touring their latest album Churches – out now via SOTA Records – to growing audiences across the globe including Hungary, France and England. In 2022, the artist will spend more than six months touring the world with their most uptempo album to date.
The music video for “The One That You Love” — the first single from Churches – has already generated more than 25 million YouTube views for the Western-inspired track. LP released an additional four tracks from their sixth studio album for more than 27 million more YouTube views and, on Friday (Dec. 3), debuts a video for “Conversation” in conjunction with the album’s release.
The “Conversation” video features two versions of LP attempting to communicate, to no avail. LP describes the video as, “Me being in two different outfits and one of me was not hearing, or not understanding, and beating their head against the wall.” Check out the new video below.
They hope the new album translates better to their fans who had to wait 14 extra months from when Churches was originally scheduled to come out. According to LP, the wait generated four additional songs and has come to “incorporate feelings people felt before and after the pandemic.”
“If you’re already a fan of mine, you’re going to dig this album. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m trying to chronicle my own life and my story,” LP says, adding that they believe they’ve found a tribe out there and it’s about making them happy.
The 15-track album fits seamlessly into LP’s canon – both sonically and thematically. Churches’ production is lush with handclapping beats and LP’s powerful vocals. The album’s executive producer Mike Del Rio says, “We imagined this music being experienced as some sort of sweet release after a dark time.” He adds, “As fluid and as genre-less as LP is, the music we make is always a pursuit of reflecting their philosophy with a message of love and connection at its center.”
For LP, finally getting to release the aptly named album is cathartic. “Church, for me, is what everybody finds sacred in their life, in their heart,” they tell Billboard. “These songs are my way of expressing my love and the depth of my connection to people.”
Metallica bassist Jason Newsted says he is now “free and clear” after facing throat cancer.
The 63 year old musician, who played with the Enter Sandman legends from 1986 through 2001, has shared details of his diagnosis publicly for the first time. He explained that doctors discovered it early, and on May 8, 2025 he “underwent a procedure” to treat the condition.
Speaking on the Let There Be Talk podcast, he said: “They took a bunch of s*** outta here and then they went in with lasers this way and took a bunch of s*** out.
“So the cavern inside my head is different than it was, but we got it early. And I got my ‘free and clear’ about three weeks ago. So I beat it.”
Jason contributed to several of Metallica’s most iconic releases, including 1988’s ...And Justice For All, their self titled 1991 album, 1996’s Load, the 1997 follow up Reload, and 1998’s Garage Inc.
After going through his cancer experience, the bassist made a point to slow down and actually give himself time to recover instead of constantly pushing forward.
He explained: “I promised myself I was going to rest, and that was the first time I’ve done that in my life.
"I’m usually just on or off. And so I promised myself I was gonna take the gravity off and lay down for the right amount of hours."
The health scare also led Jason to give up smoking weed and drinking alcohol, something he admits he likely would not have done otherwise.
He added: “The great spirit got my attention and said, ‘That’s not good right now, man.’ And so it pulled me off it.
"And so now I’m more clear-headed than I’ve been in my entire adult life. And so there’s blessings within everything. The lemonade I’m making this summer, bro — mm. Sweet. Ooh.”
Jason has previously said that his unexpected departure ultimately helped Metallica continue moving forward, while James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich later admitted they struggled to process his decision at the time.
Lars told Apple Music in 2021: “Jason is the only member of Metallica who has ever left willingly. And that in itself is a statistic.
"And the resentment from James and I was just so… 'You can’t do that. You can only leave if we want you to leave'.
"And then we weren’t equipped at the time to do a deep dive into why he was leaving. So of course, now you can see 20 years later, it makes complete sense.”
