People Have The Power

"It's really pretty frustrating to see this shit keep happening and see racism fucking out there. It's a part of who this country is," an impassioned Ivan Neville says on this week's People Have The Power. In an incredibly powerful episode, Neville talks about how racism directly influenced the  new Dumpstaphunk album, 'Where Do We Go From Here.' 

In the midst of the pandemic of the last year, Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee found her musical bliss again while making the band's new album. 'The Bitter Truth.' "I feel a new sense of belonging where I am.," Lee  tells Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power. 

Shakey Graves' influential debut, 'Roll The Bones,' turns 10 this year. And to celebrate he has reissued the album, releasing it to streaming services for the first time. It's perfect timing for the Austin-based Graves to revisit the past because as he tells host Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power, Graves hasn't been prolific during COVID. He has used the time to take a break.

He talks about the break, selects protest songs from Pink Floyd, Sam Cooke and more, his admiration for David Bowie and why it took him a minute to become a Bruce Springsteen fan on this week's show. 

"Of course I have a fond affection for that song obviously for personal reason," Bruce Hornsby says of Tupac's 'Changes,' one of his six protest songs of choice on this week's People Have The Power. "That song is my song, 'The Way It Is,' with new words. I love the lyrics, such a positive message, such a soulful message. And now again it's achieved this pantheon status where I've been sent several videos from around the world, one of the most beautiful ones came from New Zealand, where there are these protests and Tupac's ;Changes' is playing and hundreds of people are singing along, they know every word. "

"Music has a very particular role to play in social protest and in social movements. So I look at the songs in terms of what is their use and how are they useful," Joan Osborne tells host Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power. Osborne talks about her new album, 'Trouble And Strife,' and much more. 

"Hearing great songs that make you move has been a huge part of what's inspired me to make this record. I really wanted to at some point in my life make a record that felt like I could move my body to it and have fun,"  Julia Stone says on this week's People Have The Power of her forthcoming 'Sixty Summers,' her first solo album in eight years. 

During the course of this week's People Have The Power James picks several protest songs, including Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," which he says, "That's my favorite album of all time."

He elaborates on the significance of the song both culturally and in his work. "Right after George Floyd was killed and I was in Los Angeles at the protest I saw several people holding up signs with lyrics from 'What's Going On' on them. That song and that record, to me, are the pinnacle of human achievement musically," he says.

So how does it influence his own work? "Everything about that record is what I aspire to be with music. I feel like that record haunts my dreams," he says. "That record, in my mind, is untouchable. So I'm always looking to it as the cornerstone of the building I'm trying to build. "

"My first one was 'Get Up, Stand Up,' but I crossed it out because I was like, 'That's too obvious.' There's another one called 'Slave Driver,' which is less obvious that I like. In my deeper cuts that would be the one,'" Ziggy Marley says of why he chose his father's "Slave Driver" as his dad's protest song on this week's People Have The Power. 

"I remember when Beyonce went on tour and Feminism is in big lights in the back. I was asked by so many journalists, in this sort of goading way, to undercut her,  'What do you think of Beyonce saying feminism with her booty shaking?,'" Ani DiFranco recalls on this week's People Have The Power. "I’m like, 'Wow, you just want a cat fight, don’t you? What is up with that?' It’s beautiful, it’s absolutely beautiful that, for me, any woman that’s going to claim the F-word, I want every woman who believes in their right to self-determination to call themselves a feminist. "

From feminism to her favorite New Orleans foods, DiFranco covers a wide range of subjects in this hour-long talk that also touches on Billie Eilish, writing a play and much more. 

"A lot of these songs that have been deemed protest songs, they're fucking great songs anyway. You're just waiting for an excuse to go out and sort of sing them. So 'Ohio' would be one of those. They're really made to help you express it cause you don't know what to say," Wayne Coyne says of what makes a good protest song on this week's People Have The Power. 

One of the smartest and most literate songwriters in music, National frontman Matt Berninger is one of the only artists who could make the connection between Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B. "WAP" and Robert Mapplethorpe.

"Robert Mapplethorpe was using art and beauty and photographs to try to get people around him to understand him and specifically even if 90 percent of the photos were of flowers some of them were about very graphic sexual things from Robert Mapplethorpe expressing a sexual side of himself and that is what 'WAP' is doing," Berninger explains on this week's People Have The Power. 

It's just one of the many amazing insights from Berninger in this fascinating conversation.  

According to Gavin Rossdale, there are two artists who have shaped the writing in his multi-platinum, 20-plus year career. In this latest episode of People Have The Power.  Rossdale explains to host Steve Baltin how he drew upon the “underlying sexual tension” from Patti Smith and the overall influence the Sex Pistols had on him. “I’ve never made a record that I don’t reflect on the lyrics and then listen to the Sex Pistols.”  

The lead singer of Jane’s Addiction and founder of Lollapalooza, Perry Farrell is an alternative icon. On this week’s People Have The Power Farrell joins host Steve Baltin to discuss three decades of Lolla, the role of music in the pandemic and his wide-ranging playlist of protest songs, from 1940’s “This Land Is Your Land” to 2020’s “State Of The Union.”

“For a woman to be singing ‘WAP’ you feel empowered. It makes you feel good as a woman, it makes you want to show off, it makes you feel sexy, it makes you feel empowered. And as a female artist that's all I would hope to do for my female fans. And they did that,” Grammy nominee Noah Cyrus says of her first protest song, 2020’s song of the year, “WAP.” Cyrus discusses that and so much more on this week’s People Have The Power podcast with Steve Baltin. 

Though a legend and icon for the last five decades, Toots Hibbert remained truly humble. "I can't believe that people still respect the true words of Toots And The Maytals," he told host Steve Baltin when he joined the People Have The Power podcast this past August, just a month before his death September 11. Today, December 8, on what would have been Hibbert's 78th birthday, People Have The Power is proud to share this conversation and for people to hear Hibbert in his own words. 

For Cam, like many of us, she has had a social awakening in 2020. And that permeates her choice of protest songs, including Cat Stevens’ “Miles From  Nowhere,” which she says takes her on a journey, and Tracy Chapman’s powerful “Behind The Walls.” Speaking about the songs she chose she says, “I guess we gotta keep singing them until they’re no longer relevant.”

Ben Harper’s love and knowledge of music is as impressive as his long-running career. He shows why on the latest People Have The Power as he takes host Steve Baltin on a geographical and historical tour of his favorite musical cities and artists, from John Coltrane and John Fahey to Bob Marley that have shaped his work.

Talking about Nina Simone with host Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power, Fitz And The Tantrums’ Noelle Scaggs says, “It's crazy when you're talking about how they're still relevant today and you're talking about this song in particular and she's talking about second-class housing and second-class schooling, basically treating African-Americans like we're fools.” 

“The Clash had unapologetic music and unapologetic politics,” Tom Morello tells host Steve Baltin on this week’s People Have The Power. Morello has clearly l learned well as he has been rock’s most fervent activist for much of the last two decades. He talks about where that passion comes from, from Coltrane to the Clash.

On this remarkable episode of People Have The Power E Streeter and Sopranos star Stevie Van Zandt tells host Steve Baltin how a single Bob Dylan line opened the door for rock and politics to  mix and changed the face of music forever.