Category: Interviews

  • interview by Michael McCarthy Singer/songwriter Justin Masters is one cool dude! He’s also a great friend. As someone who’s known him since the mid-90s or thereabouts, I am proud to know him and I’m even prouder that he’s releasing his music. Before And Way After is his second album, but rather than a follow-up to…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy On September 4th, 2020, the world’s most famous Christian rock/metal band of all time, Stryper, will release their 13th studio album, Even The Devil Believes, on Frontiers Music Srl. If you’re a fan of the band’s last three albums, No More Hell To Pay, Fallen and God Damn Evil, then you’re…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy One of the last heavy metal bands to make it big before grunge exploded and decimated the scene was a group out of Paramus, New Jersey called Trixter. The band’s self-titled debut came out in 1990 and their biggest hit, “Give It to Me Good,” was number one on MTV’s daily…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy On July 10th, Enuff Z’Nuff will release their all-new album, Brainwashed Generation, on Frontiers Records. It’s the band’s third record for the label and the second to feature bassist Chip Z’Nuff front and center handling lead vocals on all but one song, a blistering gem called “Strangers In My Head,” which…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I’ve known singer/songwriter/painter Michael Rider for several years now. Their piano-centric indie pop blends irresistible pop hooks with thought-provoking lyrics that sometimes feel like poems and occasionally sound like journal entries, which I mean in the best way possible. Insightful is the first word to describe Michael that came to mind…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy photos courtesy of Rorie Kelly “You can’t keep this fucker down,” sings indie favorite Rorie Kelly on her ferocious new song, “Up From Here,” which she just uploaded a live version of on Youtube this week. It’s just one of several new songs the powerful singer-songwriter has unveiled as of late,…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy If you’ve been following Love is Pop for any period of time then I’m sure you’ve realized that one of my favorite people to interview is Michael Sweet of the legendary heavy metal band Stryper. In fact, this interview is the seventh time we’ve spoken since we started chatting about his…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I rarely do this, but I, your editor here at Love is Pop, have to start off this introduction on a personal note. Recently, like most people, I’ve been feeling down. As you all know, it’s hard to be cheerful when there’s a global pandemic killing thousands of people every day.…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy Doing music interviews in the time of COVID-19 is weird, man. You want to talk about music, but at the same time, it’s the nasty virus that’s at the forefront of everyone’s collective mind. So, I knew we were due for a new interview here on Love is Pop, but at…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy The following interview with French American singer/songwriter Ariane took place last Thursday on the 12th of March 2020. Not long after many people in the United States had finally started to feel the gravity of the COV-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. I think both she and I felt a little strange doing an…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy On May 1st, Polly Scattergood of solo and onDeadWaves fame will release her breath-taking new solo album, In This Moment. It features 12 tracks that each tell their own story, which one might breathe in like unique snapshots. These scenes portray everything from hospital waiting rooms to Viking sea burials to…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy Have you ever read a book that was so haunting you’ve never been able to get it out of your head? One that stays with you that you can’t stop thinking about? That just randomly pops into your head at the strangest of times and lingers for days whenever it does?…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I was recently blessed with the opportunity to hear Franco-Israeli singer/songwriter Yael Naïm’s fifth studio album Nightsongs, which will be released via Believe Music on March 20, 2020. Although her songs have largely been introspective throughout her career, I was moved by just how much more personal the tracks on Nightsongs…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I remember back in the winter of 2013 – 2014 at some point when my artist and photographer friend Josh Bernard first took me to Mill No. 5 at 250 Jackson Street in Downtown, Lowell, Massachusetts. The fourth floor of the mill was being developed into a mall of sorts, an…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy Late last year I posted something on Facebook about wanting to replace some of my prescription medications with natural alternatives and a few of my friends commented and asked if I’d tried kratom, something I wasn’t particularly familiar with. I had seen it before, however, at a local convenience store where…

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