Table of contents for Oct-08-15 in Rolling Stone

TV MEET TREVOR NOAH The Daily Show’s new host has some seriously big shoes to fill. We spoke with the South African comedian about preparing for his September 28th hosting debut on Comedy Central, race in America, and more. PREMIERE DEF LEPPARD: STILL HOWLING Singer Joe Elliott on the pop-metal band’s new LP, performing with Taylor Swift, his feelings on Donald Trump. Plus: an exclusive stream of the group’s new song. VIDEO OBAMA GOES TO ALASKA Watch highlights from the president’s historic Arctic visit, where he called climate change the “one thing that threatens opportunity and prosperity for everybody.” Q& WATERS: BACK TO ‘THE WALL’ Pink Floyd’s co-founder reflects on his blockbuster world tour and more in an indepth interview following the release of his new concert film, Roger Waters…

Pete Wentz The Fall Out Boy bassist calls this his “Never-Ending Summer Playlist.” It’s full of nostalgic warm-weather anthems and newer songs he loved this summer. Jason Isbell “Something More Than Free” Jason Isbell is so deeply authentic. This song makes me think about driving around with the windows down in August. The Misfits “Die Die My Darling” This one reminds me of skateboarding and staying out as late as I could without my parents totally freaking out. Beastie Boys “Sabotage” When I was younger, I’d watch MTV literally all day in the summer. I remember watching this video and thinking, “I want to do that.” Travie McCoy “Golden” Sia sings on this, Diplo coproduced it. If that doesn’t scream summer anthem, I don’t know what does. It makes me…

What’s the least-complicated, best-sounding system I can get? Ditch your old receiver for the PS AUDIO SPROUT ($799; psaudio.com), a 50-watt-per-channel amp that excels at handling sources both old (vinyl) and new (digital, via Bluetooth, USB or coaxial); the compact chassis hides a phono pre-amp, a headphone amp and a DAC. Then build out your system with the BOWERS & WILKINS CM5 S2 ($1,600 a pair; bowers-wilkins.com), a space-defying bookshelf speaker with an uncommonly rich midrange, thanks to its tough composite drivers and one-inch tweeters separated from the cabinet via a ring of cushioning gel. I want to get back into records but ditched my old setup. Where should I start? All you need is a turntable with a built-in phono pre-amp, plus powered speakers. Plug the AUDIO-TECHNICA AT-LP120-USB ($300;…

Don Henley Cass County Capitol BY DAVID FRICKE Don Henley was country before it was cool, long before he was a singing, drumming and songwriting member of the Eagles. Cass County, his first solo album in 15 years, is named after the East Texas plains where Henley, now 68, grew up amid farming, oil rigs and the Southern radio crossfire of blues, gospel and honky-tonk music that produced rock & roll. Henley alludes to those roots and ideals in his true grit here – 11 original songs of working-stiff portraiture, broken-love autopsy and sunset-years judgment – along with a handful of rich-soil covers. They include the Louvin Brothers’ 1955 hit “When I Stop Dreaming,” Jesse Winchester’s rustic 1970 jewel “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz,” and the psychedelic-prairie waltz “She…

PrinceHit N Run: Phase One Tidal Prince’s new album opens with allusions to “1999” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” But it’s less a re- creation of those Eighties classics than an attempt by the more restlessminded Prince of today to reimagine the funky precision and effortless mastery of his glory days in new ways. It might be the most collaborative album he’s ever made, with a bevy of guest musicians and vocalists – most prominently co-writer/co-producer Joshua Welton and, on one song, the backing band 3rdeyegirl, who worked with Prince on 2014’s willfully eclectic Art Official Age and Plectrumelectrum. Hit N Run (which is being released exclusively through Jay Z’s streaming service, Tidal) is similarly hit-or-miss. Dance jams like “Fallinlove2nite” and “Ain’t About 2 Stop” thump authoritatively enough, but…

America’s Game all props to stephen rodrick for giving our Super Bowl quarterback Russell Wilson proper star treatment [“The Chosen One,” RS 1243]. There’s nobody in the Nflwho battles harder than Wilson. Jodi Weinberg, via the Internet wilson is a talented and versatile quarterback, but the celibacy talk sounds sanctimonious, and saying that God speaks to him makes him look narcissistic and egotistical. John Davis, Shelton, WA i’m a wisconsin badger who lives in Seattle, so having Russell Wilson here was a football dream. However, my day job is working on concussion management and creating a paradigm shift in how concussions are diagnosed and treated. Wilson says he “banged his head” during the Packer game, but far too much work has been done for him to minimize “return to play”…

Between january 1965 and February 1966, Bob Dylan wrote and recorded his first three electric albums, breaking from folk music and forever changing the course of his career and of rock itself. And as his exhaustive new studio-outtakes box set reveals, the journey toward the perfection of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde was just as fascinatingas the final products. The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, out November 6th, offers a definitive look at the development of Dylan’s plugged-in sound, unveiling embryonic takes and alternate versions of some of his greatest songs, including “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Visions of Johanna.” “At the beginning, most songs were fairly shapeless,” says organist Al Kooper, a key collaborator on Highway…

A few years ago, i t looked like Nathaniel Rateliff’s music career might be over. The Missouri native had been at it for more than a decade, first as frontman of the Denver alt-rock band Born in the Flood, then as a singer-songwriter. His 2010 solo album led to gigs opening for Mumford & Sons, but his label rejected his follow-up. Rateliff worked as a gardener and thought about calling it quits. “I thought, ‘If it ends here, then I’ve done what I can do,’ ” says Rateliff, 36. He eventually decided he had only one option – “push through and write new songs” – but this time, he added a fresh twist. “At an early age, I loved Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and doowop,” he says. “I wanted to…

Lana Del Rey Honeymoon Interscope A honeymoon with Lana Del Rey is more sticky than sweet: Get ready to enter a world of truly tortured romance, complete with enough bitterness, lust and violence for a onewoman revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? If the pop star’s guitar-laced 2014 LP, Ultraviolence, was a one-night stand with a new sound, her follow-up is the morning after – the moment when Del Rey gets back to what she’s best at. The moody, cinematic string arrangements on the title track and the wistful highlight “Music to Watch Boys To” recall her 2012 debut. She goes further into pop on the supercatchy single “High by the Beach” and the excellently sultry “Freak”; the latter song’s steady bass thump and druggy abandon evoke her…

1. Sturgill Simpson “You Don’t Miss Your Water” The country rebel with the dynamite voice has been doing a spectacular cover of this Stax classic on tour: He gives a rich George Jones flavor to a tune once sung by Otis Redding. Hit YouTube to see how smokin’ it is. 2. Billy Gibbons “Treat Her Right” The ZZ Top dude’s new solo LP is called Perfectamundo, which, frankly, is all we need to love it. But this sweet little Tex-Mex boogie sure doesn’t hurt. 3. New Order “Plastic” Ever wonder what Donna Summer might have sounded like if she were a gang of British dance-rock vets? Us neither – but the answer, as heard on this pulsing cut, is pretty awesome. 4. Thom Yorke “Villain” Radiohead have reportedly been putting…

‘ am hungover, and so my mind’s not really working, I’m sorry,” Ed Sheeran says, explaining he went out the previous night in Miami with DJ Khaled for “a lot of very, very loud rock music and sparkly bottles and stuff like that.” Sheeran is about to take the stage at Tampa’s Amalie Arena – with a capacity of 13,000, it’s one of the smaller gigs on a tour that has Sheeran playing U.S. stadiums for the first time. In July, he did three sold-out nights at London’s Wembley Stadium, all without a band. Sheeran’s mentor Elton John joined him onstage, and told him, “You’re the only person in the world who could do this on your own.” Says Sheeran, “The peak was just walking out onstage for the first…

T hat sunday night, March 29th, 2009, after the dinner dishes were done and put away, Lawrence Franks took out a bottle of Jameson and turned to his roommate, Matt Carney: “Ya wanna shot?” He asked this every night. Carney, like Franks, an officer in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, lifted his glass and made the first toast. Here’s to the two of them and all that their lives now entailed: to surviving their first miserable winter at Fort Drum, to navigating the labyrinth of rules, regulations and duties that they, as newly minted second lieutenants, were still trying to make sense of. Here’s to figuring it out. Franks downed his drink, feeling the slow, soothing burn of the whiskey. He poured another shot. Take care of yourself, buddy, he…

A former teen idol is onstage, met with boos from an audience that’s confident his best years are behind him. That could be Justin Bieber two years ago at the Billboard Music Awards – or Ricky Nelson at Madison Square Garden in 1971, when he tried playing new music instead of his old rockabillylite hits. Nelson took his revenge with a retelling of the incident in “Garden Party,” his final Top 40 hit. Bieber is having his last laugh with his firstever Number One, “What Do You Mean?” Call it pop’s Pinocchio moment, as stars who got their starts as teens cut their strings and strut their stuff in order to prove they’re real boys and girls. At an age when most people are barely out of college, Nick Jonas,…

Johnny Depp was at a turning point when he first appeared on the cover of ROLLING STONE, in 1991. He had recently walked away from the hit series 21 Jump Street to focus on adventurous movies such as Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands – and revealed, in the words of writer Bill Zehme, that he was “a man who lives hard, loves hard, but most of all, thinks hard.” Depp talked about the inspiration for his Scissorhands portrayal (a dog: “This totally pure, open character... whose appearance is incredibly dangerous”) and his love for fiancee Winona Ryder, whom he had just honored with a WINONA FOREVER tattoo. The couple would split (the tattoo became WINO FOREVER), but Scissorhands was a smash, and Depp’s course as an artist was set. 1991: On…