American singer-songwriter and music producer Josh Cumbee recently collaborated with J-pop artist Vicke Blanka on an acoustic rendition of the former’s debut single  “Sound of Your Name.” Cumbee, a Los Angeles-based musician who has worked with numerous A-listers including Janet Jackson, Madonna, Chris Brown, Adam Lambert, Olivia Rodrigo and more, made his solo artist debut in February 2020.

The collaborative version of the track with Blanka pares down the original in a way that amplifies the heartbreaking moment depicted in Cumbee’s emotional ballad about being blindsided by memories of an ex. The two artists — both multi-instrumentalists who sing, write, arrange and produce music for themselves and other acts — touched base from LA and Tokyo in this remote interview with writer Minako Ikeshiro for Billboard Japan, which revealed that “great minds do think alike” despite differences in language and background.

Josh, “Sound of Your Name” is your debut single. Why did you choose this one?

Josh Cumbee: It’s a song I wrote with Jay Denton about a year ago and I kept remembering it and singing it a lot every time I took a shower or something. I figured the only way to get it out of my head was to release it, so that’s why I went ahead with it.

It’s a beautiful song that captures a moment that everyone is probably familiar with, about being caught off-guard by a phone call from an ex. Is it based on a real experience?

Cumbee: Yes.

Vicke Blanka: What, really?

Cumbee: I fell hard for someone after graduating university and intended to marry her, but we ended up going our separate ways. Just when I thought I was over her, I experienced this heart-stopping moment when I heard the same name as hers being called in a coffee shop. I felt confused because I was sure I was over her, but our breakup sort of washed over me in that moment, and that’s what I based the song on.

What did you think about the song when you first heard it, Vicke?

Vicke: First of all, I was struck by his great voice. I heard it in my car on the way to a favorite ramen place, and reflexively thought that I wanted to sing with him, so I contacted the person in charge [of Cumbee’s material] right away.

Vicke doesn’t appear until the chorus halfway into the song, and then he closes the number. Whose idea was this arrangement?

Vicke: Me. I knew right away how to do the chorus part. I could tell immediately how I should join in so that nothing would be wasted and so that the result would become a moving duet. I join in halfway through the song, Josh and I chase one another, and in the end I mute him and leave my vocals in. He said it was great and just rolled with it, which was gratifying.

Cumbee: When I’m finishing up a track, there are cases when multiple exchanges are needed to feel out the other person’s intent, and then there are cases when the other person understands perfectly, and Vicke was the latter. It was really great, so I polished up my vocals during the mix to make them both stand out. I like the duet so much, I don’t want to listen to my solo version anymore.

Something you both have in common is that you play multiple instruments. What can you play?

Cumbee: I’m not super good at them, but I can play most instruments. Piano, guitar, bass, drums and the trumpet too.

Vicke: I mainly play the piano, and can also play guitar, bass and drums. I recently got myself a KORG MA20 and intend to start using it. I use a computer to arrange music and to do rough mixes. I can also play left-handed guitars.

Do you play those instruments when you actually record music? Or do you ask session musicians to come in when you need those sounds?

Cumbee: When I’m making my own music, I play those instruments for the most part. I mess up a lot, so only use the parts that I’m happy with. When I recently worked with a Dominican artist, we used congas and upright bass, so we asked pros to play those, of course.

Vicke: I can play basic instruments, but I’m lazy so I’d rather play video games than practice to become professional-level at them. There are many excellent pianists in Japan, so I compose on my piano but trust others to play for the actual recording.

Cumbee: Hey, I like games too! I was just talking to someone earlier about how most famous producers play video games. I was saying how it’s probably because you’re immersed in the game when you’re playing it and it lets the music-making part of your brain rest, so it actually might improve productivity.

Vicke: I should emphasize that theory to my manager! [Laughs]

If you were to work on each other’s projects again, what would be the ideal way?

Cumbee: When this current social situation settles down, I’d like to write songs with him by communicating in the same studio. Bring ideas to the table and jam and make music that way.

Vicke: Since I was able to sing with him on one of his songs, I’d like to perform together onstage as a producer/DJ. My next goal is to work abroad as a producer/DJ, actually, because Japan lacks the environment to do that kind of work. Do you do any DJing at music festivals, Josh?

Cumbee: I’ve performed at a festival in Europe as the vocalist for a DJ set before. I don’t have DJing skills, so if we were to perform together, I’d probably sing or play while you handle that part.

Vicke: Sounds great. I don’t intend to sing when I perform abroad.

That’s a bit of a shame.

Vicke: I kind of think that unless you sound like a native speaker, the audience wouldn’t be able to relate to your music. Instead of investing time into that aspect, I figure it’d be better to ask a local singer to sing for me. Singing in Japanese is fine, I suppose, but in that case I think rock or anime songs would be better. Japanese doesn’t sit well with EDM.

Cumbee: You might not want to draw conclusions like that. A friend of mine, an English singer named Nick Howard, felt he had too much competition in the U.K. so he studied German for six months and is enjoying huge success in Germany now. … It was definitely really hard to do any kind of musical activity last year. Music is something that unites people, so it’d be great if we could all gather together to enjoy music again.

Vicke: Although I couldn’t go anywhere or do tours, I personally didn’t intentionally use energy to solve those problems. I figured it would end eventually, so I decided to just exist like water. After spending so much time focusing on myself, though, I started thinking about why I wanted to do music in the first place. And I remembered that it was because I wanted to be on TV at school during lunch and that singing made me feel good. [Note: Many Japanese schools use in-school PA/broadcasting systems to play music during lunch break, curated by students.]

Anything else you’d like to add?

Cumbee: I think I’ll be able to drop an album this year. And I’d love to sing in one of Vicke’s concerts.

Vicke: I’ve been making lots of music since 2020 and still have some that I haven’t released yet, so please look forward to those.

When touring ceased during the COVID-19 shutdown, artists found themselves with more free time than they’d had in years. Lady A’s Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott embraced the moment by consuming themselves with creating new music. The result is What a Song Can Do (Chapter One), which came out June 25 via BMLG Records and is the trio’s first new album since 2019’s Ocean.

“When we started writing, we all had no idea how long we were going to be in the pandemic and not being able to do much other than stay at home and write, so we just put our heads down, worked through this music and wrote a ton,” Haywood tells Billboard during a Zoom call with Kelley and Scott. “We wrote 50-60 songs almost like we did for our debut record in 2006.”

Their goal was to “be productive, really gather together our thoughts and feelings around what’s happening in the world and how we feel and what we’re going through,” Scott says. “All of that really got poured into this collection of songs.”

The album’s opening track, “Talk of this Town,” written by Haywood, Kelley and Scott with Nicolle Galyon and Jordan Reynolds, looks at what it feels to be the topic of conversation, whether it’s gossip about a relationship or other issues and, more obliquely, refers to “sort of the things [the band] went through last year,” Haywood says.

Haywood is referring to the controversy that erupted last year when the group changed their name from Lady Antebellum to Lady A to move away from the association the word “antebellum” has with with the pre-Civil War era and slavery. The name change led to a lawsuit involving blues singer Anita White, who also performs as Lady A.

“It’s all about trademark rights, so we’re just letting our lawyers figure it all out,” Kelley says, “but it’s been a very interesting process for sure, eye-opening and tough, but I think we’re stronger for it. You learn and grow so much in tough times. Just COVID in general this whole year has taught us that, but we’re as close as we’ve ever been as a band, more purposeful and more determined to just really show that message of love and support for everyone.

“That’s who we are, and anyone who has ever known us from the beginning knows that. It was just our small way of setting an example for our genre and our kids that we want to be a part of the change,” Kelley continues. “Our intention from day one was to send a message of love and change. People kind of got our intentions twisted a little bit here and only time will show them where our hearts are in this.”

Scott and Haywood agree. “We’re going to continue taking steps moving forward too to continue the cause of equality and having these conversations,” Scott adds. “We’re still learning. We will always be learning and we’re hopeful. We really are.”

(In May, a federal judge denied White’s motion to dismiss the band’s declaratory judgment action against the Pacific Northwest-based singer and her request to transfer the suit from Middle Tennessee to Washington State. White responded: “I respect the court’s decision and I am ready to move forward with defending my trademark rights in Tennessee.”)

Writing the new album helped the trio codify “what we want to stand for moving forward to as a band. [We want] our music to have kind of a deeper meaning and message behind it,” Kelley says. The title track represents that message. “That’s why we named [the album] that, but [it’s also about] what this music has done for us. It’s taken us places we never thought we would ever be, but also with music in general, it’s about what other people’s music has done for us and how music is such a healing thing.”

Though the group has built a successful career over the past 15 years by delivering meaty, full-length albums, What a Song Can Do (Chapter One) serves up just seven songs. “It’s the first chapter of two, so when the next chapter comes out, it will be a complete album,” says Scott. No release for the second half has been set.

“I know everybody is making these double records and stuff, even my favorite artists are, but I can’t consume that much music and wrap my head around a project that big. I’m good for about six or seven songs,” Kelleys says, thinking their fans might also enjoy the music in smaller, digestible bites. “It was like, ‘What if we put this out in like seven-song sections and then someone gets to dig really deep in these seven songs and then just when they are bored, we’ve got a next seven songs coming out, but it will be a part of a full collection,’” Kelley says.

Dann Huff produced both chapters, and Haywood says they worked with the same musicians in tracking both sets. Lead single “Like a Lady” stands at No. 25 with a bullet this week on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

“Lady” is an infectious slice of ear candy, but most of the songs on What a Song Can Do (Chapter One) dive much deeper into the feelings the trio has experienced the past year, including album closer “Worship What I Hate,” which is about the ways we check out on life and do the things we don’t want to do,” Haywood says.

Penned by Haywood, Scott, Natalie Hemby and Amy Wadge in September, the emotionally charged song “started from all of us really kind of giving an honest account of where we all were at that point,” says Scott. “We’d all kind of sunk into what life was and how different it was looking, drinking too much, trying to be parents and teachers, just feeling buckled under the pressure of it all.”

Scott says they began talking about society’s obsession with perfectionism “because of all of the filters on our phones and just blaming ourselves and focusing on the things that aren’t really serving us. That was the greater message and I really think it’s a redemptive song in the long run because you’re catching it and you can change [and] focus on who you can be instead of who you’ve been.”

The song also serves as a reminder to be present in one’s own life. “There’s nothing worse than having your child come over to you and be like, ‘Mom, Mom, Mom!’ and I’m like, ‘Whoa, what did I miss?’ It’s honestly a song that holds me accountable now,” Scott says.

As to whether it will be a single, the trio doesn’t know yet but are hopeful. “We really, really want it to be heard because I think we can all put ourselves in the message,” Haywood says.

Lady A is looking forward to performing songs from the new set live. After a few warm-up shows at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth, Lady A will kick off the What a Song Can Do tour on July 29 in Uncasville, Conn., with Carly Pearce, Niko Moon and Tenille Arts joining the group on the 34-city amphitheater run.

“Once we get through the nerves and excitement, I think there will be some tears, especially that opening night, just remembering the journey we’ve all gone through to get to that point,” Haywood says.

A portion of proceeds from the tour will go to Lady Aid, the group’s philanthropic fun,d which supports a variety of charitable endeavors. The Academy of Country Music will recognize the trio for its good works as recipients of the Gary Haber Lifting Lives Award during the ACM Honors on Aug. 25.

James Corden’s “Spill Your Guts” segment on The Late Late Show is getting a major update following a petition that draws attention to its offensiveness.

The recurring segment “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts” features celebrity guest stars from Justin Bieber to the Jonas Brothers either spilling answers to Corden’s most jaw-dropping questions or filling themselves up with unique foods from around the world as “disgusting” dares. But Filipina and Chinese activist Kim Saira brought it to the world’s attention that certain Asian delicacies — including balut, a fertilized duck egg dish from the Philippines — shouldn’t be labeled “disgusting,” in a viral TikTok video on June 7. 

Saira later started a Change.org petition, which currently has more than 45,000 signatures, asking Corden to remove or completely change the controversial segment, formally apologize on The Late Late Show, and donate funds to local organizations supporting Asian-owned restaurants and businesses. “In the wake of the constant Asian hate crimes that have continuously been occurring, not only is this segment incredibly culturally offensive and insensitive, but it also encourages anti-Asian racism. So many Asian Americans are consistently bullied and mocked for their native foods, and this segment amplifies and encourages it,” she wrote underneath the petition.

Corden sat in the hot seat on The Howard Stern Show on June 16 to address the petition and revisions he’ll be making to “Spill Your Guts.” “We heard that story, and the next time we do that bit, we absolutely won’t involve or use any of those foods,” the 42-year-old late-night talk show host said. “Our show is a show about joy and light and love, we don’t want to make a show to upset anybody. In the same way that when we played it with Anna Wintour, we gave her a pizza covered in cheeseburgers. Do you know what I mean?”

Corden continued: “We completely understand. It’s not for us to determine whether somebody’s upset or hurt about something … all we can do is go, ‘All right, we get it, we won’t do that.’”

Other musicians who’ve been featured on “Spill Your Guts” include Shawn Mendes, Harry Styles (during his Late Late Show guest host gig while interviewing ex Kendall Jenner), Cher, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, and Charlie Puth. In 2019, Corden sat down with Stern in-person at his SiriusXM studio to describe the foods as “not odd.”

“I said, ‘Look, all of these things are delicacies around the world,’” he recalls of his conversation with Cher before her segment ran in June 2018. “They’re just odd to us. They’re not odd. And a lot of it doesn’t taste bad. It really doesn’t. It’s just your psyche of something being new.”

But Saira, who hosted a #CancelSpillYourGuts event at the CBS lot where The Late Late Show is filmed last Thursday, expressed her disdain for Corden’s statement and frustration toward the host for not airing the statement on The Late Late Show as she specifically requested in her petition.

“The Late Late Show did not reach out to me about this statement, I actually found out from another news source I was interviewing with,” she said in an email to the Today  show. “After listening to what he said, to be completely honest with you, I’m really disappointed in this statement, which in my opinion, isn’t an apology. In my petition, I have specifically asked for James Corden to publicly apologize on his show, and the reason why I was really specific about that was because I think that it is imperative for his hundreds of thousands of viewers to understand the harm that mocking these foods, rooted in Asian cultures, has on Asian people who still eat them. Besides that, I still think he should be donating to Asian organizations as well. I’m still looking forward to whether he will address this publicly and apologize.”