Adam Doleac

It takes time to craft a debut album. One worthy of the artist it introduces, and all the work behind it. But for Arista Nashville/Sony Music Nashville’s Adam Doleac, he’s had plenty. “I've had my whole life to write my first record, plus a two-year pandemic,” he says with a wry smile. “So that's like two lifetimes.”   Luckily, he made the clock work for him. Creating a whole Barstool Whiskey Wonderland around 18 addictive tracks – almost totally from his own pen – the emerging star unveils a vision steeped in the romantic country soul of his early hits, while going much deeper as well. With tracks like the Gold-certified “Famous” and soul-mate anthem “Another,” both of which hit No. 1 on SiriusXM’s The Highway, fans have gotten only a glimpse of that wonderland so far. Now they get the full picture.   “It feels long overdue, and it's the first time people can really see the whole me,” Doleac says. “An album is a cool thing. It allows you to tell a little bit more of your story, as opposed to just people knowing a song and not knowing you.”   And for him, a lover of all things old-school with an effortless charm and an intoxicating vocal – well suited to both champagne-popping ballrooms and keg-tapping taverns – that story is worth telling. Raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, you could call him a late musical bloomer, who credits devoted parents for his strong work ethic … and his dream-chasing determination.   A talented athlete, Doleac excelled at golf early on, traveling with his dad to faraway tournaments in his first taste of life on the road. The whole family put in the time and Doleac seemed headed for success, but abruptly switched to baseball in high school. That too required a focused drive to retool his skills, and after earning a scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi, he ended up playing in front of 30,000 at the College World Series – fueling a craving for big crowds he still chases today.   In the end, he actually had a shot at going pro in both sports, Doleac says, but instead changed course again. He had fallen in love with music, writing songs with teammates and challenging himself to play hometown shows while devouring the work of emotional explorers like John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, Amos Lee and more. Within months, he decided to leave sports behind for good.   “I’m the kind of guy who’s just always reaching for a little bit more, that's just the way I am,” he says. “I have thoroughly believed I can do whatever I set my mind to since I was a kid. And I think you need a little bit of that to get anything this hard done.”   “Hard” may be an understatement. Doleac proves the old adage of Nashville being a 10-year town, but for him, those 10 years were not a straight line. Propelled by the viral success of a self-written song posted to YouTube, Doleac arrived in town with a publishing deal, and spent the following years sharpening his penmanship. Eventually Kane Brown, Gabby Barrett, Darius Rucker and more had all cut his songs, while Doleac built a grassroots fanbase touring the country in his pickup truck.   With shows growing in size, it seemed like a classic case of grinding forward and loving every mile. He scored a rare Gold-certified independent single and even signed a major-label recording deal, achieving another long-held dream. And then, just as he looked set to push over the top, COVID-19 shut it down. There were postponed tours. And then stolen equipment when touring resumed. Then there were cancelled tours. But all the while he was building that Barstool Whiskey Wonderland. Doleac slowed down, spent time with the girlfriend who is now his fiancée, and wrote 150 songs.   “It's been tough and we've had a lot of bad breaks, a lot of opportunities to give up for sure,” he admits. “But I haven't, and my guys haven't, and it's time for the moment to happen. It's like, ‘Maybe everything's coming together for this record. Maybe it's right on time.’”   Those years only added depth, he explains, taking him from singer-songwriter and performer to fully-formed artist with his own creative signature. Using his heartbeat as a pulse, lush emotions and instant-classic hooks join a soulful voice simmering just below a full boil, all wrapped in a suave new take on modern country. Catchy enough to pull listeners in. Deep enough to resonate for years.   Doleac wrote every song but one on the massive, 18-track album, and along with producers Paul DiGiovanni, Jared Keim, Jordan Schmidt, Ben Simonetti and Andy Skib, captured something that exists beyond country’s ordinary thematic cycle.   “I love things that are timeless and stuff that sticks around,” he says. “I’m not chasing whatever the newest trend is gonna be for the next six months. And I love that comment when people come over and say ‘I don't like country, but I love your stuff.’”   Tracking all the vocals himself, Doleac assembled his ideal full-length debut, including tracks his fans already love and a whole batch of new ones. Established favorites like “Famous,” “Another,” “Neon Fools,” “Could Have Loved You Longer,” and “Somewhere Cool With You” are all on the list – and so are newly-minted romantic anthems like “Girl In Love.” Fanning the flames of a heart on fire, the transformative track was inspired by Doleac’s fiancée, and only confirms his love-song bonafides.   “I'm a romantic at heart for sure,” he admits. “Like, I think there's a reason God made woman last. Because that’s the greatest thing he ever made.”   But for Barstool Whiskey Wonderland, Doleac does more. He strikes a new chord with tracks like the clever “Close That Tab,” which has already emerged as “The Vodka Soda” song in concert. “That's a breakup-with-your-shitty boyfriend song,” he says with a laugh. “I think a lot of people date the wrong person. And when they do, they do it for like six months too long!”   Likewise, the rootsy duet “Fake Love” with Danielle Bradbery stands as the first outside cut he’s ever recorded (Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd, HARDY and Jordan Schmidt), a genuinely perceptive celebration of meant-to-be lovers welded together in a magnetic vocal blend.   Others like “Drinkin’ It Wrong” offer instructions for a proper good time, “Where Country Music Comes From” praises the simple authenticity of Doleac’s first love, and “Don’t It Sound Alright” captures the laid-back perfection of a couple’s country getaway.   It all fits into the Barstool Whiskey Wonderland he’s imagined, and with the title track, Doleac puts the journey in perspective. A lush ballad that tumbles out like a dive-bar confession, the up-and-comer pours all the what-ifs of the last few years into a glass, shoots them back and lets it burn. And in the end, he realizes something profound: We all come out right where we were meant to.   “I spend a lot of time wondering if I’m doing life right, and think others do that, too,” he explains. “That's kind of what this whole era leading up to this record has been like, just trying to figure it out. But now I know. What I want people to hear is the first full idea of what Adam Doleac sounds like. I want people to hear it and think ‘That's the sound, that’s him.’”

The Movielife

Don’t call it a comeback because reunion records rarely sound as inspired as The Movielife’s first full-length in 14 years, Cities In Search Of A Heart. This is an album that shows how the group’s songwriters—vocalist Vinnie Caruana and guitarist Brandon Reilly—have grown since 2003’s celebrated full-length Forty Hour Train Back To Penn, and also contains some of their most energized songwriting to date. In other words, whether you’ve loved The Movielife since they were a scrappy Long Island hardcore band in the early 2000s or you’re a recent initiate, it’s difficult not to get caught up in kinetic frenzy that permeates every note of Cities In Search Of A Heart.   The story of this record officially began two years ago when, after spending years on their own projects—Caruana’s I Am The Avalanche and Reilly’s Nightmare Of You—the duo started playing shows together as The Movielife once again. “The two of us became close friends again and we both felt like we had learned so much about songwriting since the early 2000s that we should do another record,” Caruana recalls, speaking from his current home in Brooklyn. “We had a great reaction to the reunion shows in 2014 but felt like instead of keeping it on a nostalgic level we wanted to write a record together that people could get into.” Not wanting to taint the band’s legacy or recycle the past, the duo were faced with the monumental task of figuring out exactly who The Movielife are in 2017, which was no easy task.   Caruana and Reilly struggled with the writing until last year when they realized that they simply had to make a new record that included the punk spark that was so prevalent in all of their previous work. “I knew the tempos had to be up and we had to be energetic because that’s what our shows are like and that element is so important to who we are as a band,” Caruana explains. Eventually the duo ended up with fifteen songs that they ended up trimming down and perfecting until they ended up with the ten songs that made the final cut. “I have to admit that the task of making this record seemed slightly impossible in the beginning but I’m so happy that we pushed ourselves so hard because we ended up making a Movielife record that we’re freaking out about and can’t wait to share with the world,” he adds.   Caruana has good reason to be excited. From the driving, melodic rocker “Mercy Is Asleep At The Wheel” to the fuzzed-out pop perfection of “Laugh Ourselves To Death” and orchestrally-tinged acoustic ballad “Pour Two Glasses,” the album shows that The Movielife have crafted a collection of songs that’s as captivating as it is catchy. “‘Mercy Is Asleep At The Wheel’ is about how it feels to be alive right now during such a crazy time and also musically it feels like a really good place to pick up again,” Caruana says of the aforementioned song. “On the other hand, we’ve come close to having a ballad before but ‘Pour Two Glasses’ is something completely new to us and we put it in the middle just to break things up. There’s a lot of new feelings on this record that you haven’t gotten from this band before.”   In order to capture their vision, the band enlisted new drummer Brett Romnes who also produced the record over the course of a month at Barber Shop Studios in northern New Jersey. “The studio was built inside of an old church from the 1800s on a lake and we just posted up there for a month and banged out the record,” Caruana explains, adding that Reilly took on the bass duties as well. The group also enlisted Brand New’s tone guru Joe Cannetti to help capture the perfect sound and subsequently had Zakk Cervini (Blink-182, All Time Low) mix the results. ‘We had a dream team of me and Brandon on the songwriting side and Joe and Brett on the production side helping us execute and then we brought in Zakk who works more in the pop/rock world and he took what we already had and made it sound absolutely massive,” he continues.   Lyrically, the album sees Caruana once again writing from the heart, about where he is in his life today and about the current state of the world. “The dichotomy of The Movielife has always been upbeat music with sometimes unsettling lyrics and on this record that dark cloud is being addressed throughout the record in different ways,” Caruana says of the album. While lines like, “We’re all gonna die, exploding in a ball of fire” from “Laugh Ourselves To Death” may sound nihilistic, it’s more of a reaction to the uncertainty that plagues the world today as interpreted through the band’s unique approach to songwriting. On the flip side, Cities In Search Of A Heart features some of the band’s most hopeful songs to date such as “You’re The Cure,” keeping the album’s overall sound feel far more inspiring than defeatist.   But ultimately Cities In Search Of A Heart is meant to be listened to, not analyzed, so turn it up because rebirths usually aren’t this catchy. “Calling on the hearts, wear it on the sleeve for all to see,” Caruana sings during the album’s infectious closer “Hearts” and with these words it’s clear that he’s singing as much for himself as he is for the band’s listeners who may not have found their own voices yet. This album speaks to those very simple yet relatable attributes of what it means to be human during an unprecedented time in history, so take it all in and hold on tight.

Heated Rivalry Night

Heated Rivalry Night

Immortal Technique

Immortal Technique (Felipe Coronel)was born February 19, 1978 in a military hospital in South America, Immortal Technique was brought to the United Statesin the early 80's while a civil war was breaking out in his native Peru. The USsupported puppet democracy and Guerilla factions were locked in a bitter struggle which ended like most do in Latin America, with the military and economic aid of the State Dept. through channels like the CIA. Although he had escaped the belligerent poverty and social turmoil of life in the 3rd world, he was now residing in Harlemwhich had its own share of drama. Growing up on the streets of New York, the young man became enamored with Hip Hop culture, writing graffiti and starting to rhyme at an early age. Although he frequently cut school and ended up being arrested time and time again for his wild behavior, the kid still managed to finish high school and got accepted to a state university. Unfortunately the survivalist and aggressive attitude that was the norm in New York Citycaused him to be involved in more violent altercations at school, whether it was with other brothers, false flaggers or the relentlessly racist population of an uncultured Middle America.  Compiling multiple assault charges in New York State and in other states eventually caught up to the uncompromisingly hardheaded actions of one Immortal Technique. He faced several charges for Aggravated Assault in the tri-state area. Realizing his inevitable incarceration, Technique began to prolifically write down his ideas about what he had lived and seen in the struggle back at home in relation to his visits back to his native land. He came to embrace his African roots that stemmed from his grandfather and understood the nature of racism and ignorance in its role in Latino culture, separating oppressed peoples and keeping them divided. He also began to study in depth about the Revolutionary ideas that had caused a history of uprising in the indigenous community of his Native South America. Although pressured to turn states evidence before and during his bid, he refused the DA and lawyers. He was facing a 5-10 stretch, but the hiring of a pittbull attorney helped him compile the cases without turning snitch like his co-defendants. The result was a 1-2 year sentence in the mountains, 6 hours away from the city. There Technique studied, worked out vigorously, began to document his lyrics, and create songs. Besides the creation there was destruction, and the fights were nothing compared to the verbal battles that he engaged in occasionally. This proved to be a foreshadowing of what was to come... Paroled in 1999, Immortal Technique returned to NYC and began a campaign to claim victory to what he had discovered he had a talent for; battling. One of the rites of passage in establishing oneself in the Hip Hop community is following in the steps of those who made their name in lyrical warfare before you. Immortal Technique quickly became known throughout the underground. His brutally disrespectful style was trademark, and it was not long until he had won countless battles not just on stage and in clubs, but on the streets whenever a random cipher would pop up. From Rocksteady Anniversary, to Braggin Rites, SLAM DVD's and hookt.com's infamous battles, he established himself as someone who could captivate a crowd and who people looked forward to seeing. But it was then that Technique realized what every battle champion had come to terms with before him, battles was just that, battling, and not synonymous with success at making music. Turning his eye to production and touching up some of the songs he had written in prison he now focused on trying to get an album together, but major labels wanted a more pop friendly image and were uncomfortable with his hardcore street style that was complemented by his political views. In response to their lack of vision, Immortal Technique left the battle circuit and released his critically acclaimed Revolutionary Vol.1, which at first moved 3000 copies, but to date has moved more than 12,000. This earned him Unsigned Hype in the Source (11/02) and numerous articles in Elemental & Mass Appeal. Established in the underground circuit Tech began another round of dealing with record labels unwilling to see the direction of his brutally honest and cultured rhymes. He decided to continue with what had been so successful, his hand to hand out the trunk hustle. In the post 9.11 climate, as the music industry crumbled, Immortal Technique built on the truth with a hardcore brand of street politics. Being featured in XXL, The Washington Post, and having been titled with the Hip Hop quotable in The Source (10/03) for his sophomore independent release Revolutionary Vol.2 was just the beginning.. On Viper Records, where he is the Executive VP, he sold 29,000 copies of Revolutionary Vol.2 to date and has appeared on soundtracks for new movies including the new Mario Van Peebles film "BAADASSSSS". Immortal Technique has also worked with Mumia Abu Jamal and AWOL magazine. His single "Industrial Revolution" released in conjunction with Uncle Howie Records hit #1 on CMJ and #50 on the Billboard charts.  

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Foxy Shazam

Foxy Shazam has never been good at following the rules, but the latest chapter in their rollercoaster tale is undoubtedly the most groundbreaking. Exploring musical territory only hinted at in previous releases, the band's latest album GONZO depicts Foxy Shazam in their most penetrating and exposed form. It is at once this phenomenal band's most soothing, searing, heavy, biting, dreamy, and generally jarring statement to date, in a career built upon unorthodoxy. Prepare yourself for Foxy Shazam in their most penetrating and exposed form, their characteristic grandiosity clearly evident but captured in a severe new light.

Brass Against

Brass Against wants the music they perform to sound inspiring and resonate with people’s emotions, encouraging them to act. They combine rock and edgy hip-hop to play music that's powerful and empowering.Brass Against is exceptional music with a political edge. They’re angry, they’re inspired, and they’re ready for change—and they hope their music amplifies this energy in everyone who listens.

Laundry Day

LAUNDRY DAY was formed in 2016 at Beacon High School in New York City. Jude, Sawyer, Henry, and Henry (yes, there’s two, and they share a birthday) would spend any free time they had writing songs in the basement. By the time they graduated in 2020, they’d independently released 3 albums, 2 EPs, and toured all around the country. When the pandemic hit, the boys stuck together to make their fourth record, “We Switched Bodies”. Meanwhile, their song "Friends" was making waves on TikTok after being used as the closing song in the Season 3 finale of the Netflix series, “On My Block”. Fast forward: the boys are self-proclaimed “Road Dogs,” who drive themselves around the U.S. in their sprinter van    Since the start of 2024, the boys have leveled up their social media game, exponentially growing their audiences on Instagram and TikTok. As the boys continue to release music, sell out venues, open for Ed Sheeran, play the knicks halftime show while still being the “funniest band on your for you page” according to Rolling Stone Magazine, they aim to inspire everyone to embrace having fun through music.