Building on the soundtrack of his life, diamond-selling superstar Brian Kelley drops his latest solo offering, Sunshine State of Mind Season Two, Chapter One, today (Fri, June 20th). The full-length independent project features 14 tracks co-written by Kelley, as he returns to his personal mantra, and the feel-good foundation of his acclaimed solo career.

Kelley’s new songs were penned alongside his 2021 release, Sunshine State of Mind Season One, and saved for another day. Much has changed in the years since – including delivering two more albums (Tennessee Truth and Ed & Mary Margaret’s Son) – but its sing-along themes remain relevant, with creative passion and country-born pride expressed through Kelley’s laid-back beach town vibe.

Kelley’s expansive creativity was recently showcased on Fox's The Masked Singer season 13, where he made it to the show’s final round. Unmasked as the Mad Scientist Monster, judge Robin Thicke applauded his closing performance as the “best vocal of the season.”

Starting July 24th in Savannah, Georgia, Kelley will hit the road to headline his Sunshine State of Mind Tour with dates continuing through September 7th in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In this episode, Kelley speaks to us about the fun he had on The Masked Singer, his new album, the tour, and more.

Hootie & The Blowfish co-founding guitarist Mark Bryan has a new solo project called Popped. Showcasing his multi-faceted talents, Bryan played all instruments while also enlisting a band of Charleston musicians, including skilled horn players, to round out the project with additional depth and dimension.

"I made the record before the tour, in the fall of '23, I guess it was," Bryan tells us. "It just where I was at musically. I just had a bunch of songs and I have a home studio, and got with my engineer and cranked them out. Most of the noises you hear on the album are me, including drums. I played a lot of drums this time for the first time, which is cool. I had a band in on other tracks, and some horns. I kinda really stretched the direction that I'm going on this one. I went many directions. I kinda let the songs dictate the style, and just followed that. I have a Latin pop song on there, and ska song, and a reggae song, and some stuff that's a bit more folky and a big rock song. It's just all over the place."

Bryan is on tour supporting the project. The multi-instrumentalist, who's from Silver Spring, Maryland, will play a hometown show at The Atlantis in Washington, DC on June 20th featuring Hootie's Gary Greene, and other area musicians.

This episode also sees Bryan discuss his and Darius Rucker's solo projects, and what he hopes the future holds for his longtime band.

This weekend, hard rock and heavy metal fans will flock to Columbia, Maryland for the 16th edition of the M3 Rock Festival. Tonight (Fri, May 2nd), Sebastian Bach kicks off the three-day event with Snake Oil. David Lee Roth headlines tomorrow (Sat, May 3rd) with appearances by Accept, Winger, Slaughter, Steven Adler, Child’s Play, Red Voodoo, and more. The festival closes on Sunday with a long-awaited reunion of Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini performing Ratt, Ace Frehley, Warrant, Great White, Lita Ford, Vixen, Spread Eagle, and Soundcheck Rock.

Ahead of the festivities, we had a chance to chat with Great White founder and guitarist Michael Lardie about their performance.

“It’s always great to play. We’ve been pretty lucky of late. We’ve been [playing M3] pretty much every other year, which is great for us. We’re doing a show up in Flint, Michigan. Got a travel day and then we’re over in [the Maryland, DC, Virginia area],” he tells us. “Obviously the fan base is, pretty perfect for our genre of music… And it’s cool to see everybody still doing it. I mean, that’s another thing that warms your heart, when you’re there and you’re doing the show with all the different bands that are there. it’s kind of like, wow, we’re still doing it. This is awesome.”

Lardie also discusses new music and more with us.

Check back for exclusive M3 coverage with reviews, interviews, and photos from the weekend.

California-based Great White is Lardie on guitar and keys, Mark Kendall on guitar, Audie Desbrow on drums, Scott Snyder on bass, and Brett Carlisle on vocals. Since 1982, the Great White sound has captivated audiences worldwide with crushing, blues-based guitar riffs and swagger that invokes an emotional high for anyone that listens. The band’s core writing team of Lardie and Kendall forged numerous hits over the years, and when Desbrow joined in ’85, the grooves hooked an amazing stride.

Four decades in and Great White enlists Brett Carlisle to take over vocal duties and lead the charge on hit after hit. That arsenal of songs include the Grammy nominated Best Hard Rock Performance hit, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” Great White has sold over ten million albums worldwide, has six Top 100 Billboard hits, nine Top 200 Billboard albums, two platinum albums, and clocked the top of MTV four times.

Last month, UMG Nashville released the original series soundtrack for the Paramount+ hit show Landman, featuring an original score by Andrew Lockington (San Andreas, Rampage). The music flawlessly matches the drama and the intensity of the series as well as the expanse of the landscape. Set in the boomtowns of west Texas, Landman is a modern tale of fortune seeking amongst roughnecks and billionaires in the world of oil starring Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Michael Peña, Jon Hamm, and Demi Moore. The series was co-crated by Taylor Sheridan and Christian Wallace.

Lockington is best-known for his epic scores to such Warner Bros. blockbusters San Andreas, Rampage and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which together have surpassed over $1 billion in box office revenues.

"I have been working with Taylor Sheridan for four years now," Lockington tells us. "I believe I started out, he hired me to do a show called Mayor of Kingtown with Jeremy Renner. And then after that went pretty well. We worked on Lioness together, which is Nicole Kidman and Zoe Salana and Morgan Freeman, another great show. and he'd been working on Landman for a while and he approached me and said, 'What are your thoughts on it and what would you do musically?' And as per our process, I threw together a few ideas and texted them to him and we went back and forth a little bit and I was really fortunate to get the gig."

Paramount+ has renewed the 2024 breakout hit Landman for season two with Lockington confirming he's already working on the score.

The series scored in the Top 10 SVOD Original Series for quarter four across all SVOD, alongside Paramount+’s Tulsa King and Lioness, marking only the second time since Nielsen began tracking SVODs that a service had three of the Top 10 series, outside of Netflix.

Landman had 35 million global streaming viewers for the premiere episode and set new records for Paramount+. It was the most watched global premiere and finale of any series in Paramount+ history. It has placed as the top Paramount+ Original ever on the service with the top engagement driver and No. 1 on households.

Season one is available to stream exclusively on Paramount+ with a Blu-ray and DVD release scheduled for May.

Rising singer/songwriter Annie Bosko proves country music isn’t just about where you’re from, but who you are with her latest single “California Cowgirl,” available now via Stone Country Records. Bosko embraces her California and farming roots with the neotraditional song that declares country girls can be found all over the map.

"I'd say that even though I'm from California, I had a pretty, rural upbringing and my uncle was in the rodeo world," Bosko tells us. "We had five quarter horses and an arena and they did the team roping events and barrel racing and I would go take a horse on horseback and go trail ride and sing. That was like, I would just love to be out in nature on trail ride. That was my jam. I never got into the rodeo events. I just sing a lot of national anthems up but never actually competed. My uncle's a grape grower in Delano, so I'm very familiar with that area. And I've always really had a love for the Bakersfield country sound -- Buck Owens. Dwight Yoakam is a friend of mine which is very strange to say that, to be like Dwight Yoakam is a friend. We text him and he and his wife have just been awesome so supportive of, and he actually gave me the idea for 'California Cowgirl,' my latest song that came out. I was doing his podcast and he said, 'California Cowgirl, Annie Bosow.' And so that's sort of really what inspired it."

"California Cowgirl" was released last week and is a taste of her forthcoming debut album. The song follows “Better Than You,” her top five duet with multi-platinum country star Joe Nichols.

Following her RodeoHouston debut last month, where she kicked off opening night with a performance of the National Anthem, Bosko will perform at Stagecoach on the Mane Stage on Saturday, April 26th.

Last fall, Poison drummer Rikki Rockett introduced his new band, The Rockett Mafia! Featuring Rockett on drums, Brandon Gibbs on guitar and vocals, Bulletboys guitarist Mick Sweda, and Bryan Kimes on bass and backing vocals, the group celebrates the best music of the 70s through the 90s classic rock era.

Rockett, who is the co-founder of Poison, and remains the band’s only drummer throughout their storied 40-year career, says the band stemmed from the annual Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride he hosts in Los Angeles.

“I’m a city host for a motorcycle ride every year called the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. And it’s a worldwide ride,” he tells us. “[B]ut they never had entertainment at the Los Angeles one. And they’re like, ‘Hey, why don’t you do something?’ I’m like, ‘What are you doing? You just go out and do a solo.’ I mean, And I thought to myself, maybe I can put a little something together, do a bunch of cover songs and see how that goes. Just have fun, have people enjoy, the day, so I put it together and I just used the players from Chevy Metal and cuz I had done a fill in for them. And I got Brandon from Devil City Angels who we’ve been friends forever. And I just called up The Rocket Mafia and we did that one-off show and I thought to myself, ‘This is pretty cool. This could be a fun thing to just do cover songs, enjoy some of the stuff that I loved growing up with and just have a great time with it. Maybe reinvent a few little things.’ And then Brandon mentioned to me after looking at a poll about Poison where people were saying, ‘Man, I wish Poison would do more of these deep cuts.’ and I just know we’re not going to do more of these deep cuts. So, guess what? I will.”

Rockett talks more about the new band, what’s ahead for Poison’s 40th anniversary in 2026, his cancer battle, evacuating from the recent Los Angeles widlfires, his memoir, and more.

This year’s Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride takes place on Sunday, May 18th. Those who want to sponsor him can via the event’s website.

“On Sunday the 18th of May 2025, I’m riding in The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride with fellow men and women across the globe to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer and men’s mental health on behalf of Movember,” he shares. “Men die on average six years earlier than women and for largely preventable reasons. The number of men that are suffering is growing, and we need to do something about that. So, before I press my tweed and polish my boots, I’m asking you to join me in raising funds and awareness for these causes by donating what you can for this meaningful cause and to help the men we love, live happier and healthier lives.”

Poison has sold over 50 million records worldwide behind the hits “Talk Dirty To Me,” “Nothin’ But A Good Time,” “Something To Believe In,” “Ride The Wind,” “Unskinny Bop,” and the Hot 100 No. 1 single, “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn.”

Last week, Dugger Band took the internet by storm after brothers Seth and Jordan Dugger shared a video reading an email that WSMV-TV in Nashville sent about their new patriotic song "True Colors." The brothers were set to perform the self-penned and John Rich-produced track on Today in Nashville, but were told by station management that the lyrics were deemed too "politically biased" and recanted their offer for that song.

Blindsided, the brothers contacted Rich who advised they should not appear on the station at all. Instead, Dugger Band and Rich shared messages on social media that went viral and shot their song to No. 1 on the independent download charts.

"I think WSMV probably had no idea that I had produced this record because if they would have known that my name was attached to that, they would have known all hell was about to rain down if they made the move that they made," Rich tells us in an interview. "But I'm glad they made it. Know why? Because it pulled the curtain back on that television station, WSMV. They're total cowards. They will not answer an email. I have friends in conservative media who have called them multiple times. Guess what they do? They hang up the phone the second they ask the question. So, They're weak. They thought they could kick the Duggars around because the Duggars aren't a big act yet. They thought they could get away with bullying somebody and shoving them around. And they didn't get away with it. And the result of it was these guys go number one on the country download chart. So, hell yeah."

The Duggers said the song was written to unite, not ignite, people.

"We wrote the song trying to bring people together," they share. "We didn't see it as a political issue at all. We saw it as a patriotism type and so we wrote the song with that in mind. And whenever they scheduled us to come perform it on the show and we were excited about doing it. We told our fans, 'Hey, we're going to be able to go on this news network in Nashville and perform this full band on the news.' And it was just about a day and a half, about 36 hours or so before we were supposed to perform, whenever we received the email that they had determined that it was too politically, divisive, I guess, to be able to play it. And we still don't know what lyrics they were talking about, because we wrote the song with patriotism in mind."

The Music Universe has reached out to WSMV for comment, but still has not heard back a week later.

Legendary artist Bill Medley releases his debut solo country album, Straight From the Heart, via Curb Records. The album sees the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s unmistakable baritone voice covering mega country music ballads alongside some of the industry’s biggest stars including Michael McDonald, Vince Gill, Keb’ Mo’ and Shawn Colvin.

Previous tracks include "These Days" featuring Vince Gill, which offers a taste of the singer-songwriter’s blues roots; "(Since You’ve) Gone" featuring Keb’ Mo’, which delivers a doleful version of remorse and regret; "Crying Time" featuring Michael McDonald, a powerful blend of soul and harmony; and a cover of George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," that blends country and soul, adding a new layer of emotional resonance to the country classic.

In the interview, Medley tells us why he chose ballads over a mix of slow and uptempo songs.

"I'm really a blues singer, and so the ballads just are, like (singing) 'Born to lose.' 'I live my life in vain.' That's what I want to say," he says. "They asked me to do a couple of fast songs, but I said, 'I just want to keep it soulful,' and that's what I do best."

In support of the album, Medley will make his Grand Ole Opry debut on Saturday, February 22nd. The singer-songwriter and his new partner Bucky Heard are also currently performing a residency at the South Point Casino, Las Vegas, and will be hitting the road on tour, taking fans on a nostalgic journey through the catalog of one of the greatest duos of all time.