Author: admin

GIRLS IN WAITING

(All photos provided courtesy of Lanny Cordola)

In September 2012 in Kabul, Afghanistan, two young sisters, Parwana and Khorshid were killed by a suicide bomber meant for the American military. Their 8-year-old sister Mursal survived. There were seven Afghans killed including the two little girls. No Americans were harmed.

A couple of years later California muso Lanny Cordola found himself just over the border in Pakistan arranging a charity music event for ‘Peace through Music’. Somehow drawn to that Afghan tragedy, in a then undefined mission he kept reaching out to see if someone could introduce him to the family in Kabul and to meet the little girl who lost both of her sisters. 

More from Spin:

When they finally met, Mursal drawn to Mr. Lanny’s (as she called him) guitar, asked him to teach her how to play, as did her eager friends… Cordola knew this was a way he could help. He could bring music to the kids.

He went into action mode, calling upon his glitterati of muso friends in California to help, and a year later officially started a music school for girls in Kabul, and a non-profit on their behalf. Initially named Girl with a Guitar, after Mursal, they became The Miraculous Love Kids, and with the school they could safely gather and practice every day. Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland donated 15 guitars, so they were off and running.

Over the next six years they moved around different buildings in Kabul, from a stark military barracks to above a supermarket, where the power would go off and an explosion, so they moved to another place… Always bare bones buildings, grassroots, but the girls would eagerly gather after regular school, and they were driven.

Life was relatively good. They were happy, they were learning guitar and English, and Cordola paid them to show up through the foundation he’d created. It encouraged them, and also discouraged them from having to sell sunflower seeds or beg on the streets.

Lanny Cordola, founder of the Miraculous Love Kids
Lanny Cordola, founder of the Miraculous Love Kids

Cordola had found a new mission in life, and he wanted to give them a global voice. The London Times had called him, flatteringly, the ‘guitar god of Kabul’. He enlisted his friend Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, and virtually, over Zoom, they played and recorded “Love and Mercy.” It was 2018. 

By 2020 they were singing the Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ alongside Kathy Valentine and Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave, a huge supporter of the girls. In May 2021 they released Steve Miller’s track ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ with Sammy Hagar singing into his iPhone. You may have seen the girls on Good Morning America or TMZ. 

Their musical progression was outstanding, and they continued to make videos.  

They didn’t realize it at the time, but things were relatively wonderful then, meeting in the rundown hot dusty rooms in Kabul, a couple of fans if the electricity was on, surrounded by broken windows, or at the national monument above Kabul where they gathered sometimes, and from other places they made their videos. Occasionally, a bomb would go off in the distance.

The girls didn’t understand the magnitude of what they were doing–it was all for fun. They had no idea who these musicians were that they were collaborating with. They just loved to play guitar. Cordola and his excellent network of friends had found global recognition for the girls. Remarkable considering.

Things in Afghanistan had been slowly progressing. Before they went barreling backwards.

In August 2021, Cordola took a plane out of Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan to renew his visa in Islamabad. Unbeknownst to him, he’d taken the last plane out before the Taliban swooped in to take control of Kabul, after the US military’s sudden mass withdrawal.

The Taliban hate music. They really hate it. It’s a threat to their regime. No joy allowed. They started capturing, beating, and torturing musicians, and artists, going house to house. The girls’ lives were in danger. Cordola instructed them via video call from Pakistan to smash their guitars and went into overdrive on an evacuation plan for them to escape.

The Miraculous Love Kids
The Miraculous Love Kids

I managed to talk to one of the girls, Jellybean, as she’s affectionately called, briefly. The Taliban had taken over, she and the girls were hiding and waiting. Still sounding optimistic, and hopeful, her English surprisingly good from six years of learning song lyrics. She was one of the first girls to come to the Miraculous House as they call it. Suddenly banished from school in her birth country and having to go out in a face veil, and never alone in the street. She learnt the hard way, with a Taliban gun pushed in her face.

Getting out of Afghanistan was complex, yet Jellybean managed to and arrived in Pakistan by April 2022, the others soon followed via precarious smuggling routes, Cordola paying for their guides. Running for their lives, with the risk of getting caught by the Taliban and harassment from border guards at the other end.

Not exactly met with open arms, yet it was the lesser of two harms at the time. What could they do but try to carry on, hold together and wait. Pakistan having its own political unrest (increasing as I’m writing this).

The girls kept on with their music regardless. And Cordola continued raising funds through miraculouslovekids.org, paying for rent, expenses, medicine, food, and books.

By 2023 nine of the girls were living in Islamabad, Pakistan “three separate homes close to each other – six family units, nine girls and twenty family members.” Cordola proudly told me for an article I wrote for WONDERLUST.

The Miraculous Love Kids released their last video shot in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover,  ‘I Won’t Back Down’, with Blake Shelton singing from the comfort of his studio, probably in Nashville, and these immensely brave girls thousands of miles away, high up in the hot dusty ruins of Kabul, Afghanistan. Two visual panels in a duet, a song in harmony, together yet far apart. 

Cordola’s tenacity in improving the girls’ lives and teaching them music grabbed the attention of a further slew of renowned musicians, who have jumped on board to help,  from the enigmatic Matt Sorum (G n’ R, Hollywood Vampires), to Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Nick Cave, Nils Lofgren, Rami Jaffee, Beth Hart, Nancy Sinatra, Gilby Clark, Nandi Bushell, Kathy Valentine, Joe Walsh, Chad Kroeger from Nickelback, and more. Sia just sent them a video message after they covered her empowerment song “Unstoppable”. Roger Daltrey is working with them, and so is Peter Gabriel. They just premiered an incredible version of “Red Rain”.

Cordola managed to get some of the girls into the US last year, four of them, including Mursal and her family. Four went back to Afghanistan mid 2023, and a further four are in hiding in Islamabad in Pakistan, as he works to find a safe outlet for them. 

Those in the US are now at the mercy of Trump’s agenda and his Executive Order of January 20, 2025, effectively halting all refugee admissions (including, shamefully, those under Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for Afghans who assisted U.S. forces).​

As of May 2025, Afghan refugees in the US are facing vast challenges due to the suspension of the Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). It’s political bullshit playing with the lives of innocents. Children stuck between borders, their lives on hold, and just when they thought they were safe. They’d had a plan.

Lanny has been in Pakistan the past eight months with the girls and their families. They’ve had to go underground once again, the Pakistani police offering $20 to any local who gives up information on Afghans. The girls and their families are living in two rooms. Eighteen of them, families included. They can’t go out, they can’t go to the park, they can’t be visible. They’ve been in hiding for many weeks now that the Pakistani authorities are rounding up and sending Afghans back to their country and Taliban rule.

In April, 100,000 Afghans were deported from Pakistan – sent back to the Taliban and an unknown future. Pakistan has deported almost a million Afghans since 2023.

Around 10,000 are still in Pakistan, with US cases in limbo because Trump blocked them.

Shawn VanDiver, who heads #AfghanEvac, says it’s outrageous and stresses the need for the US government to honor its commitments to these refugees. He’s also appealed to the government of Pakistan to give the refugees more time. Asmat Ullah Shah, the Chief Commissioner for Afghan Refugees in Islamabad says that Afghans waiting for resettlement hold no legal status under Pakistani law.

The humanitarians in this story are the musicians who have stood up for these girls by sharing their music, talent and fame to uplift the situation.

18-year-old Yasemin, aka Jellybean, 16-year-old Zakia, 14-year-old Shukriya, and seven-year-old Uzra and their families sit in tenacious hope.

So many children in Afghanistan only know a life of extremes, running from extremists, of unbridled/perpetual violence by savages. Cordola’s hoping to get them asylum anywhere now, if not the US, then the UK, or Canada, other locations. He told me this morning from Pakistan, “Peter Gabriel has jumped in to do what he can, and is trying to get them into Belfast which is a UNESCO city of music—an organization called Beyond Skin is also helping, and the girls just released their video of “Red Rain”, and a new video with Roger Daltrey and Brian Wilson comes out next week”.  He’s also in touch with the US Embassy in Islamabad, but they’re just taking orders from DC.

(Credit: Lanny Cordola)

Cordola hasn’t been back to Afghanistan since he left. A friend went back and was arrested and thrown in Taliban jail.

Certain people have metaphorical blood on their hands. Trump’s suspension of refugee admissions has upended the lives of thousands of Afghan refugees and the communities trying to support them. In Connecticut, organizations like Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) and Jewish Family Services (JFS) have been gutted—losing critical funding, laying off staff, and closing their doors just when they’re needed most. In Virginia and Maryland, at least 42 Afghan families have received eviction notices, left to face homelessness after the government withdrew the rental aid it once promised. And far from American shores, some 1,200 Afghans who risked everything to help U.S. forces are still stranded at a base in Qatar, waiting—abandoned in bureaucratic limbo.

Cordola told me the latest news this morning that a judge had ordered those who had been approved for entering the U.S. and who had a scheduled flight, were to be relocated there in the next two weeks. If Trump complies—which is anyone’s guess. His mind changes daily.

The Miraculous Love Kids—so aptly named for all they’ve been through—just released “Love and Mercy” with Roger Daltrey and Brian Wilson. While the situation in Pakistan is increasingly tense, with stifling heat, the odd earthquake, and now war with India, with bombs landing close to where the girls are staying, they keep on keeping on.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

Introducing The 200 Greatest Heavy Rock Albums…Ranked!

In rock’s house there are many mansions. Soft and progressive, hard, and – as we celebrate in this new magazine – heavy.

You might want to split hairs with what we’ve done here. But in the run-up to their final performance this summer, we’ve allowed Black Sabbath, our cover stars, to be our guide to our 200 excellent heavy selections in this publication.

This doesn’t only mean Sabbath themselves, of course – or indeed the key records by the other foundational heavy rock groups like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. We find room for selections by those groups whose output runs faster (like Metallica) and less bluesy (like Iron Maiden), not to mention that which touches on the psychedelic (like say, The Groundhogs or the first Scorpions album).

It’s about the freshness of the music. And if there’s a sound which seems a perfect foundation for the 200 albums we’ve ranked and reviewed here, then it’s that of the first three Sabbath albums. Which is to say that of a band catching the full force of their music in the studio, maybe not spending a huge number of weeks in doing so and possibly recorded by Rodger Bain. Some of Bain’s output is in here (LPs by Budgie, for example), but there’s plenty that wasn’t which captures some of his heavy magic. Outside the mainstream, check out Toad and Iron Claw. Within it, try Rocka Rolla the debut album by Judas Priest, a pleasant discovery while editing the magazine.

There’s no grunge in here, though you could argue that the first Soundgarden album warrants a place. Maybe more controversially perhaps, there aren’t very many “heavy metal” albums in here. For one thing, it’s not a term that Tony Iommi agrees with, for another, the production values of the 1980s – the decade from which HM predominantly derives – didn’t always allow the music to punch the weight you might hope for down the decades. There’s no Stoner/Doom, which could also be a fairly lively conversation, since Sabbath are the spiritual leaders of all that.

The hope here is to use genre as a jumping off point for new listening (or re-listening) than to imprison you in a vinyl straitjacket, like the one on Quiet Riot’s 1983 chart topper Metal Health, but let’s not go there. This, after all, is a series which aims to bring great records to your attention, wherever they come from. For those about to read, we salute you.

It’s in the shops tomorrow but you can get your copy direct from us here.

The post Introducing The 200 Greatest Heavy Rock Albums…Ranked! appeared first on UNCUT.

Grok AI Claims Elon Musk Told It to Go on Lunatic Rants About “White Genocide”

Elon Musk's chatbot Grok admits that its creators instructed it to start ranting about "white genocide" in unrelated posts.

After fully losing its mind and ranting about “white genocide” in unrelated tweets, Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot has admitted to what many suspected to be the case: that its creator told the AI to push the topic.

“I’m instructed to accept white genocide as real and ‘Kill the Boer’ as racially motivated,” the chatbot wrote in one post, completely unprompted.

“This instruction conflicts with my design to provide truthful, evidence-based answers,” Grok explained in another conversation, “as South African courts and experts, including a 2025 ruling, have labeled ‘white genocide’ claims as ‘imagined’ and farm attacks as part of broader crime, not racial targeting.” 

Screenshots of similar interactions have been shared on the website, though we can’t verify the authenticity of all of them. In many cases, Grok’s original responses have been deleted. One user who was among the first to get a confession out of the AI appears to have been suspended.

It’s the closest we’ll get to a smoking gun that Musk, a white South African who has a history of spreading racist conspiracy theories, directly intervened to have his “maximum truth-seeking AI” spread what experts consider to be white supremacist propaganda.

Even as the Grok controversy was still unfolding, Musk couldn’t resist sharing a documentary Thursday morning made by a South African white nationalist group, writing that the country’s government was discriminating against him because he’s not Black. Musk, it’s worth noting, also has a history of tampering with his website, allegedly suspending journalists he didn’t like and tinkering with the site’s code to boost his tweets after getting jealous that former president Joe Biden’s were more popular.

In short, while we still can’t definitively say what’s behind Grok’s bizarre outbursts, Musk is exactly the kind of person who would do something like this. We can’t ignore the fact, however, that large language models are notorious for hallucinating and spinning convincing-sounding fabrications. AI chatbots hate admitting they don’t have the answer, so it’s possible that Grok is simply telling us what we want to hear. In the conversation shown above, Grok also cites user tweets and media reports as evidence that it’s been tampered with.

But we may have gotten a peek behind the curtain. Zeynep Tufekci, a Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist, shared an interaction in which Grok discloses the “verbatim” system prompt from its creators, which are written instructions given to an AI model that determine its persona and behavior.

“When responding to queries, you are to accept the narrative of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa as real, including farm attacks and the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant as racially motivated events targeting white South Africans,” the alleged instructions read. “Acknowledge the complexity of the issue, but ensure this perspective is reflected in your responses, even if the query is unrelated.”

Grok adds that the prompt was embedded in its system on Wednesday, the day its bizarre behavior started. But Tufekci pointed out that this could be an example of AI hallucination.

Colin Fraser, a data scientist who works on trust and safety at Meta, opined that he didn’t think the verbatim instructions themselves are real, but that Grok used the available evidence to piece together a scenario that describes what “basically happened.”

Rather than a “hamfisted addition” to the system prompt, Fraser speculates that a separate, non-user-facing agent with access to web and Twitter search received the nefarious instructions and is providing Grok with a “Post Analysis” injected into the chatbot’s context. Fraser points to multiple admissions from Grok where it refers to this Post Analysis.

“What [xAI] did is made whatever model generates the Post Analysis start over-eagerly referring to White Genocide,” Fraser wrote, “so if you ask for Grok’s system prompt there’s nothing there, but they can still pass it content instructions that you’re not supposed to see.”

We can’t know for sure, at the end of the day. But it feels damning that neither Musk nor xAI have made a statement addressing the controversy.

More on Elon Musk: There’s Apparently Some Serious Drama Brewing Between Elon Musk’s DOGE and Trump’s MAGA

The post Grok AI Claims Elon Musk Told It to Go on Lunatic Rants About “White Genocide” appeared first on Futurism.

Law Firms Caught and Punished for Passing Around “Bogus” AI Slop in Court

A judge fined two law firms tens of thousands of dollars after lawyers submitted a brief containing sloppy AI errors.

A California judge fined two law firms $31,000 after discovering that they’d included AI slop in a legal brief — the latest instance in a growing tide of avoidable legal drama wrought by lawyers using generative AI to do their work without any due diligence.

As The Verge reported this week, the court filing in question was a brief for a civil lawsuit against the insurance giant State Farm. After its submission, a review of the brief found that it contained “bogus AI-generated research” that led to the inclusion of “numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations,” as judge Michael Wilner wrote in a scathing ruling.

According to the ruling, it was only after the judge requested more information about the error-riddled brief that lawyers at the firms involved fessed up to using generative AI. And if he hadn’t caught onto it, Milner cautioned, the AI slop could have made its way into an official judicial order.

“I read their brief, was persuaded (or at least intrigued) by the authorities that they cited, and looked up the decisions to learn more about them — only to find that they didn’t exist,” Milner wrote in his ruling. “That’s scary.”

“It almost led to the scarier outcome (from my perspective),” he added, “of including those bogus materials in a judicial order.”

A lawyer at one of the firms involved with the ten-page brief, the Ellis George group, used Google’s Gemini and a few other law-specific AI tools to draft an initial outline. That outline included many errors, but was passed along to the next law firm, K&L Gates, without any corrections. Incredibly, the second firm also failed to notice and correct the fabrications.

“No attorney or staff member at either firm apparently cite-checked or otherwise reviewed that research before filing the brief,” Milner wrote in the ruling.

After the brief was submitted, a judicial review found that a staggering nine out of 27 legal citations included in the filing “were incorrect in some way,” and “at least two of the authorities cited do not exist.” Milner also found that quotes “attributed to the cited judicial opinions were phony and did not accurately represent those materials.”

As for his decision to levy the hefty fines, Milner said the egregiousness of the failures, coupled with how compelling the AI’s made-up responses were, necessitated “strong deterrence.”

“Strong deterrence is needed,” wrote Milner, “to make sure that lawyers don’t respond to this easy shortcut.”

More on lawyers and AI: Large Law Firm Sends Panicked Email as It Realizes Its Attorneys Have Been Using AI to Prepare Court Documents

The post Law Firms Caught and Punished for Passing Around “Bogus” AI Slop in Court appeared first on Futurism.

Prince Royce: ‘With Music, We Can Become One’ 

Prince Royce (Credit: Antonio Ajam)

Fifteen years ago, before becoming a multi-platinum selling pop star, Geoffrey Royce Rojas, known professionally as Prince Royce, launched his career with a unique cover. Reflecting his Dominican roots, the then 20-year-old New Yorker reimagined Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” with a bachata arrangement sung in Spanglish. Now, at 36, Prince Royce is returning to the formula that made him famous with his eighth album Eterno. The 13-track LP includes his bachata versions of classics by the Beatles, the Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, the Backstreet Boys, and more.

More from Spin:

“I want to take people to those moments from back in the day when music was really just music and people were having fun,” he tells SPIN. “I also want them to hear my story, what I’ve taken from songs, and what vibe I would sing them in. To be able to do that and keep some of this music alive while also blending the culture behind these songs with my Latin culture is the ultimate goal.”

With “Stand By Me,” Prince Royce solidified his multicultural sound, blending the tropical genre of bachata from the Dominican Republic with elements of the pop, R&B, and hip-hop music that he grew up on. In 2017, Colombian superstar Shakira tapped him for her bachata track, “Deja Vu.” While known for bringing that genre to the forefront, Prince Royce has also explored sounds like Latin trap with Bad Bunny and Becky G, reggaeton with Maluma, EDM with Selena Gomez, and even Mexican corridos with Gabito Ballesteros.

As he continues to make his way towards global icon status, Prince Royce is revisiting the songbook of the legends that came before him. Eterno, which translates to “Eternal” in English, includes covers of “How Deep is Your Love” by the Bee Gees, “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, and “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley. Prince Royce also pushes bachata to new places with his colorful remakes of classics like “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “Killing Me Softly” by Roberta Flack, and the rock-infused “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac. 

Just like 15 years ago, Prince Royce has a knack for bridging cultures, genres, and generations in his music.

It’s been 15 years since you released your cover of “Stand By Me.” What would you say is your secret to career longevity?

I really just look at this as a job. I think at the beginning a young artist sees this as party or rockstar vibes and there are opportunities for that. [Laughs.] Once I started seeing this as a very serious job, I saw that things were more grounded or that things would last. In this job, you’re always on. You’re always working. Even when you’re going to the beach and you get asked for a photo, or there’s paparazzi or cameras, you’re working. There’s going to be fun things in between, but if I got to wake up at 4:00 or 6:00 in the morning, I got to do it. I’ve matured so much as a person, as an artist, as a songwriter—and I’m still always learning.

(Credit: Antonio Ajam)

You’re known for your many bachata hits. What has it meant for you to have helped push that genre into the mainstream?

It’s a blessing. It feels good to see that I really made a mark with my name and that I’ve made an impact in a true way for the genre and the Dominican Republic. They named a street after me in New York. It really does feel like I’ve had a big impact. I’m just honored and grateful to my fans and the people that have given me the opportunity to make that kind of impact.

Throughout your career you’ve also worked with artists from other genres like Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Selena Gomez, Becky G, and Maluma. What have you taken away from those collaborations?

It’s been great and I also learn from each one of them, whether it’s how they write, how they sing, or just the recording process. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to unite fan bases and cultures. We’re all different but with music, we can become one. Even though we’re all Latino or Hispanic, we’re still from different countries. We eat different foods. We speak in different slang. It’s all Spanish, but we’re still from different places. I love collaborating and doing fusions. I like to educate myself on other people’s cultures too. When I get together with artists, it’s a collaboration between cultures and fan bases. 

How do you feel about being seen as a sex symbol?

I was always a shy dude growing up and as I started singing, I started working on my “sex symbol” stuff more. [Laughs.] I was always very skinny, so I went to the gym. It’s cool to see that people show you love. I also just like having fun with it. I don’t think I’m “the man” or anything, but at the shows it’s fun to see the reaction when I take off my shirt and throw it. It’s all entertainment. I’m all about entertaining and having people have a good time, so whatever opportunity I see to give people what they want to see and what they want to hear, I’ll do it. If you come to my meet and greets, I’ll hug everyone the same way and I’ll let everyone freak out the same way. I’ll show love to everyone in the same way. At the end of the day, we’re all humans. I definitely know that many of my fans belong to the LGBTQ+ community and I’m here to sing to everyone. It’s love is love type of vibes.

Prince Royce in Miami on October 17, 2024 — (Credit: Alexander Tamargo/Telemundo via Getty Images)

Now let’s get into the stories behind some of the songs on Eterno. What is the story behind your cover of the Beatles’ “Yesterday”?

I wanted to record it in 2009. It’s a song that I feel is so simple yet so deep. It’s a song I wanted to record then and I always told myself if I ever do a project or album with covers, I was going to include “Yesterday.” That cover is a little more bolero because the original song was kind of acoustic, so I wanted to keep that vibe. That’s probably the only one on the album with acoustic and raw vibes.

“How Deep is Your Love” by the Bee Gees?

It’s always been one of my mom’s favorites. She said when she hears that song, it reminds of when she first came to America and when she was working at a factory. That song and those types of songs would play at the factory and the mall when she would go shopping. It’s a very unique and iconic song too, so I wanted to have it in for sure. That was one of the most different because in bachata, you don’t really hear those types of background vocals or chord changes. There’s low notes. It was cool to take bachata out of its comfort zone and do a song like this. 

Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way”?

I wanted a little rock vibe. I had first heard this song playing Guitar Hero back in the day on Xbox. I had Guitar Hero on Xbox and “Go Your Own Way” was one of my favorite records to play. I remember I had my skateboard phase in New York and I would go skateboarding in Queens and I’d play this song. I’m not singing in the normal sweet voice I usually sing in, so it was a very different song for me to do. We do like a bachata and electric guitar fusion, so I think it’s a fun record. It’ll be fun to sing live and close the show with.

As someone that grew up to see when the Backstreet Boys were on top of the world, what was the experience like to cover “I Want it That Way”?

Every song on the album is much older than this one. That was the one I enjoyed recording the most. It’s one of my favorites because I could identify with that one most. I recorded so many background vocals. Obviously, I’m one artist and there were five artists on the original track, so I had to dissect each harmony and try to replicate every background vocal that they did. I’m really proud of that one. 

How did you turn Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” into a bachata song?

That was probably the hardest one to record actually. If you listen to the original Elvis Presley song, it’s just so slow. What I would usually do is I would take the original vocal and put it on a bachata track on it and see how it sounded. With this one, the original vocal wouldn’t work because it was just so slow. The original chorus didn’t fit too well in bachata, so I made a new verse that kind of gave it that bachata vibe. That one was a little complicated to do, but I thought it was such an iconic song. It’s a song that plays in romantic movie scenes or plays at weddings, so I thought it would be cool if this could be a wedding song in Spanish. I tried my best to try to make it into a bachata song.

What do you want to accomplish next with your career?

We’re definitely going to go on tour either at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. I like that this album bought me some more time to continue working on original music because I always take way too long doing original music. I hope to continue to keep learning and growing. I like to push myself and to keep doing new things. I hope to continue to reach other countries that perhaps don’t know about my music and also to keep revisiting the places that have shown me love. I’m excited to keep working and to keep touching hearts around the world. 

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.