Rolling Stone

rolling stone

Jason Fine EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR Sean Woods MUSIC EDITOR Christian Hoard CREATIVE DIRECTOR Joseph Hutchinson DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE CONTENT Catriona Ni Aolain DIGITAL DIRECTOR Jerry Portwood MANAGING EDITOR Alison Weinflash DEPUTY MUSIC EDITOR Simon Vozick-Levinson ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS David Fear Maria Fontoura NEWS DIRECTOR Jason Newman SENIOR MUSIC EDITORS Patrick Doyle Brendan Klinkenberg Hank Shteamer REVIEWS EDITOR Jon Dolan CULTURE EDITOR Elisabeth Garber-Paul NEWS EDITOR Sarah Grant ASSOCIATE EDITOR Phoebe Neidl ASSISTANT EDITOR Suzy Exposito SENIOR WRITERS David Browne Tim Dickinson David Fricke Andy Greene Kory Grow Brian Hiatt Alex Morris Stephen Rodrick Jamil Smith Matt Taibbi CHIEF FILM CRITIC Peter Travers CHIEF TV CRITIC Alan Sepinwall STAFF WRITERS Jon Blistein Ryan Bort EJ Dickson Charles Holmes Daniel Kreps Elias Leight Claire Shaffer Brittany Spanos Tessa Stuart Amy X. Wang WASHINGTON, D.C., BUREAU CHIEF Andy Kroll RS COUNTRY EDITOR Joseph Hudak RS COUNTRY DEPUTY EDITOR Jon Freeman ART DIRECTOR Matthew Cooley DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR Toby Fox DEPUTY PHOTO EDITOR Sacha Lecca ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Griffin Lotz SENIOR MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Joe Rodriguez CHIEF RESEARCH EDITOR Hannah Murphy RESEARCH EDITORS Jonathan Bernstein Rick Carp Andrea…

the healing of howard stern

“If you get an opportunity, even if you don’t think you’re fully ready for it, you’ve got to go with it. Say yes. Suck it up. Or is it ‘soak it up’? Somewhere in between.”—KEVIN PARKER OF TAME IMPALA IN THE WEEKS leading up to his fourth appearance on our cover, Howard Stern told listeners he was nervous. Not about the interview but about the photo shoot, which he despaired about openly on the air during his SiriusXM morning show. “Man, oh, man,” he said with a sigh on April 15th. “I hate how I look.” Though still boyish at 65, with his gawky posture, angular features and mass of curly locks, Stern is camera-shy. “I’ll talk to you for 10 hours,” he told senior writer Andy Greene. “But that fucking…

+ love letters & advice

“Knowing he’s been indulging for decades and is doing well gives a different perspective. Cheers to all the open-minded individuals who don’t judge a plant by its stigma!”—Jenny Staaf, via email Willie Stays High America’s favorite stoner, Willie Nelson, starred in our first annual Weed Issue in May [“The High Life,” RS 1327]. A few weeks before his 86th birthday, the legendary Texas songwriter sat down with ROLLING STONE senior writer Patrick Doyle, at his longtime home outside Austin. He reminisced about smoking his first joint in the 1950s, talked about starting his own cannabis company and previewed his next album. In response to the cover story, one reader, Ruben Baeza, tweeted, “The world would be a better place if everyone was more like Willie Nelson.” Paul Kramarchyk said, “Some institutions hold…

janelle monáe gets in the zone

EVER SINCE SHE RELEASED her first album, in 2007, Janelle Monáe has worn black and white onstage. The color scheme is a reference to the kind of outfits her working-class parents wore — her mom was a janitor and her dad a garbage-truck driver. “I do what I do to nod to the sacrifices that they made for me,” says Monáe, seen here backstage at a gig in Vancouver. Lately, Monáe has been embracing brighter colors onstage as she channels the larger-than-life presence of her late mentor Prince — but she’s not ready to give up her uniform yet. She plays Lollapalooza this summer.…

mac demarco’s weird, wild world

MAC DEMARCO is hanging out at home in Los Angeles, playing video games on the couch. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but let’s rock and roll!” he says. This might be the most Mac DeMarco way possible to begin a conversation. His chill folk-rock tunes, laced with a surreal sense of humor, have made the Canadian singer-songwriter an unlikely star. Since breaking through in 2014, he’s become a bankable live draw with hundreds of millions of Spotify streams, despite making little attempt to keep up with contemporary music. On his fourth LP, Here Comes the Cowboy, DeMarco gets even weirder. Take the title track, which began as a twangy guitar part and a mantra-like phrase that tumbled out when DeMarco was messing around in his garage last year. “I was…

secret shots of the revolution

Baron Wolman was beginning his career as a photojournalist in San Francisco when he got a call from Jann Wenner in 1967. “He said, ‘We’re starting this magazine,’” recalls Wolman, who became ROLLING STONE’s first chief photographer, capturing Janis Joplin, the Dead, Hendrix and more during his three years on the job. “I had no idea what I was doing.” His new book, My Generation, compiles his work from that time with stories that he began telling on Instagram. TOP LEFT: AMY HARRIS/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK. THIS SPREAD: COURTESY OF BARON WOLMAN/OMNIBUS PRESS, 7…