Maria Sherman

In an undisclosed location, at a warehouse in Los Angeles, Avril Lavigne and Rico Nasty meet for the first time. One is a giant of her genre, the godmother of modern pop punk; the other, a pioneer of misfit rap, whose idiosyncratic flows and personas (the trap Tacobella and nü-metal/rap Trap Lavigne) have inspired a microgeneration of copycats. It’...

This isn’t your garage band’s origin story. The musical moniker of Swiss-American Manuel Gagneux, Zeal & Ardor, was founded as an experiment. While living in New York, as an exercise to stay creative, he asked 4chan (the wholly anonymous forums, where anything goes — including conspiracy theorists and unchecked bigotry, a “cesspool,” as Gagneux offers over Zoom from his home in Basel, Switzerl

twenty one pilots appeared on the cover of Alternative Press issue #400. During the conversation, the band discussed their Ohio roots and why they have such a deep connection with their fans. Our twenty one pilots interview also saw them explore their newest album Scaled And Icy and their deeper artistic goals...

Breaking news: Playing music is supposed to be joyful. In any creative endeavor—especially one where a certain level of success is obtained—it’s easy to lose sight of that fact. When Canadian actor Finn Wolfhard, known the world over as Mike Wheeler on Netflix’s Stranger Things, started his band Calpurnia with guitarist Ayla Tesler-Mabe, drummer Malcolm Craig and bassist Jack Anderson in 2017 at a

LILHUDDY took an elbow to the jaw. Not in a mosh pit—there haven’t been many of those during the COVID-19 pandemic—but playing basketball with some friends in the courtyard of his multi-million-dollar home in Los Angeles. It’s the kind of common injury that could happen to anyone. Except, of course, LIL...

Michelle Zauner knows a thing or two about grief. After a few years in Philly indie-emo band Little Big League, the Seoul, South Korea-born Zauner moved back to her hometown of Eugene, Oregon, to care for her mother, then diagnosed with stage 4 gastrointestinal cancer...

Even if you’re unfamiliar with country-western music star and LGBTQIA+ icon Orville Peck, you’ve seen him: bright blue eyes striking through a leather-fringed mask, enticing an audience with a costume that he describes as “the boldest version” of himself. Since 2019, Peck has t...

Let’s address the elephant in the room: Rock music of all genres and all sub-genres has a gender problem. Far too often we look at the greats in the scene and canonize pop-punk and emo records created by men almost exclusively. There’s a real danger of erasure there. Women have ...

Ahhh, pop punk, the genre gift that keeps on giving. It’s so much more than palm-muted power chords and the desire to eat pizza. Pop punk speaks directly to our souls. It sustains our scene; it gives us a reason to wake up in the morning. Pop ...

Beloved Long Island emo vets Brand New recently released their fifth full-length album, Science Fiction. It’s their first album in eight years and might very well be their last (there’s tons of talk of an impending breakup in 2018). For now, w... Read More ...

Just like you and snowflakes (see what we did there?), no My Chemical Romance song is like the other. Because of Gerard Way and team’s ability to craft really beautiful (and heartbreaking and maddening and every other emotion) songs, we started scheming: “Hey, bet there’s a MCR single for everyone based on their zodiac sign!” You know, norma...

Lyrics don’t only work as tweets and Instagram captions, you can use them in real life, too, in your own love endeavors—as long as you pick the right ones. Lucky for you, we compiled some of the best and brightest lyrical lines from your faves in the scene—that are ripe for romance. Buckle up, memor ...

Just because you’re goth doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy a joke every now and then, right? What’s life if you’re unable to poke fun at yourself and others? Because we love you (I know, love is misery, blah, blah, blah; but we’ll take the suffering) and your uncanny ability to conjure death and the great beyond, we’ve compiled some of our favorite goth memes to darken your already pitch-black soul. So

Ever listen to a song and think, “Wow, this is speaking to me. Not just my individual situation, but me, my person, my soul”? We have, too, like, all the time—but some big bangers sing a bit truer than others. Panic! At The Disco have the power to resonate with everyone, from all walks of life and of all ages, so we thought we’d find the perfect Panic! tune for you—based on ...

My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way is more than one of the scene’s most iconic frontmen—he’s also an inspirational figure. As proof, we compiled some of Way’s most inspirational quotes. Bookmark this page for future use—because his words don’t age. “Mental illness used to be a taboo and ... Read More ...

There are a lot of ways to make an engaging music video; they are mini-films, after all, simply scored to your favorite songs. One of the ways to ensure greatness is to surprise and delight your audience with an unexpected cameo—especially if the celebrity in question is not someone you’d immediately associate with the artist, genre or even the scene at large. In the ...

Some of your favorite acts from the scene boast of brother and sister acts, and it’s probably for the best: You know they’ll stick together forever like family because, well, they are family! From emo and pop-punk legends such as Good Charlotte and My Chemical Romance to newer gen bands such as Pierce The Veil and Title Fight, siblings are all over the place. Keep that ...

Band breakups are never easy—they’re especially arduous if some or most of the dissolved act go on to make music under a new moniker. No one knows this better than Julia Pierce, the founding member of Cherri Bomb. The rest of her band went on to form Hey Violet, recent AP cover stars. It’s been ...

Ever hear of a little band called Twenty One Pilots? The genre-defying electro-pop-reggae-rap-punk-rock-all-the-other-words dynamic duo of frontman Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun? Of course you have! Listening to TOP, becoming a die-hard fan and joining the Skeleton Clique usually means you have a deep and passionate appreciation for T & J’s undying best friendship. In inter ...

Welcome to festival season! We’re currently in the midst Coachella’s second weekend and if radio pop, hip-hop and EDM aren’t really your thing, there are other places you can spend your time and money. Punk, rock and everything between flourish in some not-so-obvious festival spaces, and we’ve compiled a list of the best. Don't limit yourself t ...