Taylor Swift and Keith Urban go way back. Long, long before she was one of the world’s biggest pop stars, the 14-time Grammy winner was an up-and-coming country artist opening for the Australian-American star on tour — memories of which Urban shared during an appearance via the Jennifer Hudson Show on Thursday (Dec. 12).

Speaking to host Jennifer Hudson, who showed a teenage Swift performing at one of his shows on the screen behind them, Urban gushed that the “Anti-Hero” singer “was amazing even back then.”

“I always stood up front and watched her sing, and I’m like, ‘Oh she is singing way off into this other thing,’” he continued, gesturing into the distance. “You could see it. She was playing way past where she was already.”

The “Blue Ain’t Your Color” singer and Dreamgirls star then looked back at videos of Swift and her band pranking Urban by crashing one of his performances while dressed as the members of Kiss — a play on the country star’s song “Kiss a Girl.” “I thought it was Kiss for a minute,” he recalled to Hudson of the moment, the hilarious behind-the-scenes of which Swift documented in a 2009 vlog. “It was so good.”

Urban also opened up about how his Fearless (Taylor’s Version) duet, a From the Vault track titled “That’s When,” came to be. “She just texted me and said, ‘I have a song that I want you to sing on,’” he said. “I said, ‘Can you send me the song?’ The next thing she texts me the song — I was in a food court at a shopping mall at the time.”

After listening to the song through his earbuds in the mall, Urban came aboard and recorded the track for Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the first of Swift’s ongoing re-recording project. The LP spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2021.

Watch Urban open up about his past with Swift above.

Taylor Swift spent her last day as a 34-year-old giving back to fans in Kansas City, stopping by a hospital and visiting with young patients on Thursday (Dec. 12).

Local news network KCTV5 reports that she spent at least an hour meeting children and fans on the hematology and oncology floors of Children’s Mercy Hospital, with some witnesses saying she sang for and with patients in the facility. Pictures of her visit have also started circulating on X; in one photo, the pop star poses with a service dog in a children’s hospital room.

In other pictures, she smiles next to hospital employees and wraps her arms around young patients, at one point laughing while looking at a “Go Taylor’s boyfriend!” Kansas City Chiefs towel. KCTV5 also shared a video of the 14-time Grammy winner exiting the hospital, smiling big and waving goodbye at people watching in the halls.

Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for more details.

The heartwarming visit comes less than 24 hours ahead of the “Karma” singer’s 35th birthday on Friday (Dec. 13) — which it now seems she plans to spend in the city where boyfriend Travis Kelce plays on the Chiefs — and just a few days after she wrapped her two-year global Eras Tour trek in Vancouver, B.C., on Dec. 8.

The tight end recently congratulated his superstar girlfriend on the feat, saying on his New Heights podcast, “Shout out to everybody that was a part of that show … Obviously, it’s her music, her tour and everything, but that was a full production, man. That thing was the best tour in the world because of a lot of people, but mostly because of Taylor.”

Since the Kendrick Lamar–Drake beef broke into the mainstream earlier this year, the six tracks at the heart of the rap battle have generated nearly $15.4 million in streaming, digital sales and publishing revenue in the United States through the week ending Nov. 21, according to Billboard estimates based on data from Luminate.

Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” and Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” featuring Lamar — both of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — generated the most revenue by far and contributed nearly 80% to the overall figure. Here’s how they break down: 

“Not Like Us” generated $4.97 million in streaming and download revenue; and $2.66 million in publishing revenue. The track has racked up almost 6.3 million song equivalents. 

For “Like That,” $3.42 million came from U.S. streaming and download revenue earned by the track’s master recording rights and $1.2 million from publishing.

These calculations are for label and publisher revenue. The artists’ share of these figures depend on their contracts, which are not known.

While Drake’s “Family Matters” and “Push Ups” account for just 13% of the overall revenue generated so far by these tracks, he remains among the top 10 highest grossing artists globally, based on his catalog’s gross from 2023. Through Nov. 21, his catalog has generated 6.8 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in 2024, according to Luminate. Lamar’s catalog has generated 3.5 million consumption units so far this year.

Source: Luminate

Additional reporting by Ed Christman

Gene Simmons spent decades traveling the world as the fire-breathing bass player for KISS, taking with him the large road crews required for massive — and expensive — productions on some of music’s biggest stages. Since KISS’s final show in December 2023, Simmons has been traveling considerably lighter as the frontman for the Gene Simmons Band, playing KISS favorites, some rarely heard Simmons solo tunes and familiar classics by the likes of Van Halen and Motorhead.

Simmons says he has stripped down the tour to the essential elements — the musicians — and pockets more money from a Gene Simmons Band show than he netted as a member of KISS. “The local promoters provide the back line, and we just get up there and play,” Simmons tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. That’s a sharp contrast to the complex — and expensive — production required to take KISS on the road. 

As a solo artist playing festivals and theaters, Simmons has “no managers, no private jets, no 20 tractor trailers, no 60-man crew, no huge shows — and the pyro alone for every [KISS] show is ten grand, sometimes 50 [thousand dollars] if you go outdoors,” he explains. “Enormous, enormous costs for doing that.”

Simmons is “proud” to have performed those massive productions, but the Gene Simmons Band tour isn’t trying to replicate the KISS stage show. “It’s almost as if you decided to rent some amps in a garage and plug in,” he says, “and then everybody from the neighborhood comes in … It’s very informal and a lot of fun.”

Outside of the four band members, the band takes two additional people on the road, says guitarist Brent Woods, who manages the travel and concert production details: an assistant who helps with business duties and Simmons’ security, and one crew member for the musicians. As for equipment, Woods says the band — which also includes guitarist Zach Throne and drummer Brian Tichy — takes only its guitars and pedal boards, and Tichy may take his own snare drum on the upcoming tour. Otherwise, everything is rented. “It does save a lot of money,” says Woods. “And then in turn, everybody benefits, right? The band included. Everybody makes more money.”

The stripped-down traveling arrangement wouldn’t work with a larger group of people, Woods admits. Nor would it work if Simmons wasn’t comfortable riding in a splitter van and going without rock star trappings. “But Gene’s so easygoing,” says Woods. “He’s just so relaxed and he’s low maintenance. He doesn’t need a lot. He’s not the quintessential rock star that has to have a certain room or a suite that’s on this floor far away from the elevator. He just is not that way.”

Simmons readily admits he didn’t pioneer this approach to touring. “It used to be done by black musicians on the Chitlin’ Circuit, what used to be the black clubs, because they couldn’t play white clubs,” he said. Rock pioneer Chuck Berry took it a step further, touring only with his guitar and arriving in each city with a local band that had learned and rehearsed his songs. (Bruce Springsteen once played in Berry’s backing band for a concert in 1973.) “Now, I don’t do that,” said Simmons. “I take my band with me, but Berry would show up and would, you know, he’d tell the guys, ‘Study the records, learn these songs, I’m going to show up,’ and no rehearsal, nothing.”

To Woods, the Gene Simmons Band’s do-it-yourself touring approach is simply a longer version of the “weekend warrior” touring artist. “Bands go out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and they play two, three shows. It’s the same thing. They’re flying to the destination, the back line’s there for them.” 

Extending the weekend warrior approach into longer tours requires the knowledge Woods gained from decades as a traveling musician for decades, first as a member of the group Wildside and more recently as a member of Sebastian Bach’s band. “I’ve learned since the 90s,” he says, “when I started going out and touring. And you kind of learn by a lot of mistakes and your own mistakes and other people’s mistakes, and you finally figure it out.” Woods’ time on the road has also allowed him to built a network of professionals he can call to work at his shows in different cities. “It’s hard for younger bands to do that because they don’t know a lot of people,” he says.

Listen to the entire interview with Gene Simmons in the embedded Spotify playlist or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.