Another epic Coachella weekend has come and gone, and Audacy’s KROQ crew was kicking back with music’s biggest stars in the desert for round two, with Sublime , Taking Back Sunday , No Doubt , Rufus Du Sol , Justice , and more.
LISTEN NOW: Sublime joins Audacy’s KROQ at Coachella
Bud Gough , Eric Wilson , and Jakob Nowell of Sublime joined host Kevan Kenney before their Coachella weekend 2 set, and looking back on the emotional reunion performance, Kevan tells them he heard “tears were shed” in the crowd. Although Jakob admits, “I don't think it was that bad.”
“It was more of a sound check really though because we didn't have a sound check,” Eric says of the first weekend’s set. “But as far as the crowd, [it] was insane.” For his part, leading up to the double weekend performances, Jakob had been hinting to fans that the band had been putting in a lot of time practicing to make it all just right. “Everybody wishes it could be a little bit tighter,” he explains, “but I was so happy just having fun playing with everybody up there. It was a good time.”
John Nolan and Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday dropped by backstage to chat with KROQ’s Megan Holiday , a fan who has been telling all her friends about the band after first hearing them years ago at the age of just fifteen. That word-of-mouth from Megan and countless others certainly worked out well for the band, now celebrating 25 years after their debut, Tell All Your Friends , performing two epic weekends at this year’s Coachella festival.
LISTEN NOW: Taking Back Sunday joins Audacy’s KROQ at Coachella
Now 25 years since their inception Adam says, “I feel like this little kid, it doesn't feel like any of that time has passed. I can't believe we get to do this,” he adds, although heading into weekend two of Coachella, “nerves are still at an all-time high for me.” John says his jitters are doing better than the last weekend, partly because of how weekend two’s vibes seem to be much more chill. “Even just kind of meandering about,” he says, “it feels like everybody's like, ‘Oh, we got this, we did this last week.’”
Drummer Adrian Young of No Doubt dropped by the KROQ trailer before the band’s weekend two reunion set, telling host Kevan Kenney, “This No Doubt thing has been a friggin’ whirlwind! At times it's been overwhelming because it's been so many years and the response was 1,000 times better than we expected.”
LISTEN NOW: No Doubt's Adrian Young joins Audacy’s KROQ at Coachella
Adrian adds, “It's interesting to live suburban life for so many years as a dad and just as a at-home engineer producing records, and scoring movies, and just being a kind of a studio rat, to go back to this life for a couple of weekends… It's f***ing weird.”
It didn’t take long to adjust to his new environment though, Adrian admits. “Coming out of the middle of the audience in itself is a weird experience,” he says of how they chose to take the stage. “You know, looking at Tom and Gwen, Tony, Steve, and Gabe and just feeling the energy that happens when the six of us step onto a stage is something that I just have never felt in anything I do. To be a part of that team again on stage and connect with this many people is almost better than sex.”
The whole reunion started off, Adrian explains, “more like a zoom thing… that was different for us, but that's kind of normal for everything these days, you know, post COVID. But the process was pretty similar to the old days and it was super smooth and fun and everybody was engaged. It took very little time for it to feel like home,” he says. “To not play together for nine years and then step in front of 100,000 people or whatever the number is out here is… It's really something that I've had a hard time wrapping my head around. Being a suburban dad and then stepping out and doing that with my bandmates… it's been overwhelming, and that's an understatement.”
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This year, RÜFÜS DU SOL is celebrating ten years since the release of their debut, Atlas , and while backstage during Coachella’s weekend two, Jon George and James Hunt did a little looking back with KROQ host Kevan Kenney.
LISTEN NOW: RÜFÜS DU SOL joins Audacy’s KROQ at Coachella
“It was really cool finding old photos of us on tour,” says James. “We did the ‘Atlas’ tour around Australia in 2013 -- digging up old photos and remembering how different it was back then to now. They were definitely the good days.” Jon says of their progression since then, “It is interesting… maybe more mature. I feel mature.”
“One thing that we love about doing DJing is it's a different expression from the live show,” James says. “We spend a lot of time investing most of our resources and energy into the fact that we're a band, primarily. But we love DJing. It informs our music, we listen to a lot of dance music, especially me and Jon, and the residency is just a really good way for us to showcase the music we love listening to. We have a label called Rose Avenue Records -- a lot of that stuff is dance floor leaning, so we get to play that stuff. Also, the Wynn -- they do invest in more tasteful house and techno, compared to some other places in Vegas. It is a really good platform for this kind of music we listen to and love.” Planned for the evening, the duo have a four-hour set scheduled, and the idea is simply to “have a lot of fun” James explains, “We make a lot of edits… they're not anywhere online. We use [bandmate] Tyron [Lindqvist’s] vocals on tracks. We make custom little mashups and you know, basically, we curate the set so that there's constant recognition of RÜFÜS things.”
“I like that we got the freedom too with DJing,” Jon adds. “Obviously, when we did the live show, we're pretty locked into our set list. But with the DJing, we can sort of see if we're losing the audience a little bit or if we need to jolt in energy -- whatever it may be. We’ve got a lot of music that we can sort of lean in any way, in any direction.”
French electronic duo Justice -- Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay -- also joined Kevan Kenney backstage before their Coachella weekend two set, where the duo made their triumphant return after an extended break, and just before the release of their fourth studio LP, Hyperdrama , due out on April 26 via Ed Banger Records.
"We're not too big into electronic music," Xavier admits at the beginning of the chat, "but one of the things we like is the repetitivity of it, and we love the idea of streamlining your music until you find one perfect loop that you could listen to forever.”
LISTEN NOW: Justice joins Audacy’s KROQ at Coachella
All of the new songs on their upcoming Hyperdrama , Xavier explains, can all be thought of as “part of one piece,” though so far he admits they have only shown off the “party side” of the effort. “There’s more party tunes,” he says, “but there’s also more abstract tunes… and we really love them. There’s a string of tunes that follow each other, so if you have like 20 minutes, listen to ‘Moonlight Rendez-vous,’ ‘Explorer,’ ‘Muscle Memory,’ ‘Harpy Dream,’ and ‘Saturnine’ -- it’s a very good string of music.”
Hear even more from your favorite artists by checking out all of KROQ’s backstage interviews from weekend one of Coachella 2024 -- plus check out conversations with Cimafunk , The Japanese House , Jungle , Militarie Gun , and others from both weekends right HERE .
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