Bowling for Soup guitarist Chris Burney has announced his departure from the pop-punk band he co-founded more than 30 years ago.

News of Burney’s departure was revealed on Bowling for Soup’s social media accounts on Wednesday (Jan. 22), with the group noting they would not be recruiting a replacement to fill Burney’s shoes, but instead continuing as a three-piece.

“It is with a heavy heart we announce that Chris Burney has made the decision to retire from his stage-right post in the band he co-founded in 1994,” the group wrote in a statement shared on social media. “Some recent medical developments, 30 years of rocking balls and touring non-stop have made it difficult to continue. We are bummed to not have Chris by our sides, but absolutely support his decision.

“The future of Bowling For Soup remains bright,” they added. “The three of us will carry on, with Chris’ blessing, and continue to build the legacy of this band we all love so much. We will not be replacing Chris or touring with a touring guitarist. You cannot replace a legend. We were brothers when we started this journey… and brothers we remain.”

Bowling for Soup were founded in Wichita Falls, TX in 1994 by Burney, lead vocalist and guitarist Jaret Reddick, drummer Lance Morrill, and bassist Erik Chandler. Morrill would exit the group in 1994 (though would later return for occasional tours) and Chandler would later depart in 2018.

The band began releasing records in 1994, but wouldn’t receive commercial recognition until 2002’s Drunk Enough to Dance, which featured “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” and gave the band their first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 64.

However, their largest success would arrive in 2004 when they released A Hangover You Don’t Deserve. The record peaked at No. 37 on the Billboard 200, bolstered by the popularity of “1985” – a cover of SR-71’s original which had been released only two months earlier. The track would later peak at No. 23 on the Hot 10, and chart in the top ten of both the Adult Pop Airplay and Pop Airplay charts.

Bowling for Soup last released an album by way of 2022’s Pop Drunk Snot Bread, and spent the latter half of 2024 touring in support of A Hangover You Don’t Deserve’s 20th anniversary. The group will bring that tour to the U.K. in February, albeit as a trio.

Timothée Chalamet is both hosting this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, in addition to performing as the musical guest. In a new promo clip for the upcoming episode, he appears alongside the show’s cast member Sarah Sherman for a series of hilarious conversations.

At one point, Chalamet tells Sherman that he was “thinking of dedicating” one of the songs he plans to perform to her. As he’s fresh off portraying the legendary Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s biopic of the folk-rock star, A Complete Unknown, Sherman begins to ponder which song in Dylan’s discography he could be referring to.

“Which one is it? Probably ‘Forever Young,’ right?” she asks, mentioning Dylan’s 1974 hit. In response, Chalamet shuts her down by taking a darker tone. “No, I was thinking ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,’” he tells her.

“Oh, shoot,” Sherman says, visibly disappointed.

Chalamet first appeared on SNL in 2020. Three years later, he hosted the series again, starring in one particularly viral sketch in which he portrayed Troye Sivan in the form of a sleep-paralysis hallucination. However, this marks the actor’s first time serving as musical guest on the series.

Watch Chalamet and Sherman banter back and forth in the promo below, and catch the full episode of Saturday Night Live on Jan. 25 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC. The show also streams live on Peacock, where you can find previous episodes of the series.

Pioneering British heavy metal icons Black Sabbath are on track to be given prestigious honors by their hometown of Birmingham, England.

On Tuesday (Jan. 28), Birmingham City Council will receive recommendations that the four founding members of the band – vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward – each be given the honorary title of City Freeman. The title recognizes the contributions that the recipient has made to the city.

“Birmingham has a fantastic musical culture and Black Sabbath are a major part of that history, a pioneering band that still influences today’s musicians,” said city council Deputy Leader Cllr Sharon Thompson. “They have become synonymous with the city and have been true ambassadors throughout their phenomenal careers.

“Conferring these honors on these Birmingham legends would be the perfect way of saying thank you for all that they have done for the city.”

Black Sabbath, who first formed in the inner-Birmingham area of Aston in 1968 are long considered to be pioneers of heavy metal, with their influence being felt by bands such as other iconic groups such as Metallica, who inducted Black Sabbath into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. “Black Sabbath is and always will be synonymous with heavy metal,” said drummer Lars Ulrich.

“I’m honored and, at the same time, shocked that I would have ever been considered for this very special commendation,” Osbourne said of the honor. “I’m a proud Brummie from Aston through and through. I’m still amazed to this day that no one outside of Birmingham can understand a word I say, but that’s always made me laugh.

“I started with nothing but a dream, which I shared with Tony, Geezer and Bill,” he added. “We never gave up on that dream. My only regret is that my Mom and Dad are not here to see what I became. Birmingham Forever!”

“I’m over the moon! What a great honor to be a City Freeman,” added Iommi. “I’m aware that very few are given out. It ties us to the rich history of our hometown Birmingham, and that’s fantastic. I’m deeply grateful for the recognition.”

This is far from the first time that Birmingham has recognized the continuing impact of Black Sabbath. In 2019, Birmingham named both a bench and a bridge after the band. In 2024, Osbourne stated his desire to visit the bench, claiming he would do so “if I have to crawl there”.

Alongside Black Sabbath’s upcoming honors, the Birmingham City Council will also discuss awarding late musician, poet and actor Benjamin Zephaniah a City of Birmingham Medal. Zephaniah passed away in 2023 at the age of 65, having risen to greater fame in his final decade for his role of Jeremiah Jesus on Peaky Blinders.

In 2003, Zephaniah had turned down an offer to be appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), stating, “I get angry when I hear that word ’empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”

Splendour in the Grass, one of Australia’s most prominent music festivals, will not be going ahead in 2025.

The decision to not return following the unceremonious cancelation of its 2024 event was confirmed by promoters Live Nation in a statement given to Rolling Stone AU/NZ.

“The festivals team has our full support to bring Splendour in the Grass back when they feel it’s right,” the statement reads. “In the meantime, we’re working on exciting new projects to support artists and the industry, while meeting the demands of music fans and look forward to sharing more in the coming months.”

On the Splendour social channels, a separate, more casual message was simultaneously conveyed to its followers, apologizing for their silence and explaining they had “finally” taken the opportunity to have a “holiday”.

“The rest of the festival team have still been busy cooking up some awesome new things for music lovers in Australia, but Splendour needs a little more time to recharge and we won’t be back this year,” the statement read. “Think of it as a breather so we can come back even bigger and better when the time is right. Lots of other huge events on the horizon so keep an ear to the ground in the coming months – we can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on!”

Established in 2001 and held each year in Byron Bay, a picturesque beach town on the most easterly tip of Australia, Splendour is a destination event, the most popular mid-winter camping fest in the country. Names such as The Cure, Sonic Youth, Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, and Tyler, the Creator have all headlined the festival across its lifetime.

In 2024, the festival was canceled just weeks after it announced Kylie Minogue, Future, and Arcade Fire as headliners. “We know there were many fans excited for this year’s line-up and all the great artists planning to join us, but due to unexpected events we’ll be taking the year off,” a statement from organizers read at the time.

Three months later, the festival’s co-founder Jessica Ducrou, announced that she was exiting her role as co-CEO of Australia’s Secret Sounds Group, the producer of Splendour and a slew of live music brands.

Earlier in 2023, Secret Sounds’ other long-running festival, Falls Festival, announced it too would be taking some time off, though no updates have been provided since.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has sued a man he says defamed him by falsely alleging he possessed videos of the embattled hip-hop mogul committing sexual assault, causing him “profound reputational and economic injury and severe prejudice” ahead of his criminal trial.

In the complaint, filed in New York federal court on Wednesday (Jan. 22), Combs accuses Courtney Burgess, along with Burgess’ attorney Ariel Mitchell, of “pretending they have proof that Mr. Combs engaged in heinous acts, knowing that no such proof exists” — thereby leading “millions of people … to believe in the made-up ‘evidence’ that Defendants have falsely described and vouched for.”

Mitchell notably represents several of Combs’ accusers.

“Defendant Burgess falsely claimed that he possessed videos of Mr. Combs involved in the sexual assault of celebrities and minors,” write Combs’ attorneys Michael Termonte, Erica Wolff and Anna Estevao of the New York firm Sher Tremonte. They add that Mitchell then “repeated those lies” to media outlets while knowing all along that Burgess’ claims “were false, or at a minimum was utterly reckless in disregarding their falsity.” The complaint accuses both Burgess and Mitchell of seeking “to capitalize on the resulting publicity for financial gain” despite knowing that “no such tapes exist.”

Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is cable network NewsNation, which the lawsuit claims “recklessly repeated and amplifed [Burgess’] lies as if they were true” without ever reaching out to Combs’ representatives for comment or verifying that the alleged videotapes existed in the first place.

To bolster their case, Combs’ attorneys attempt to discredit Burgess by referring to him as “a fringe character” who claims to have worked in the music industry “for decades” even though “there exists no public record of any professional achievements and he left no detectable footprint on the industry prior to his recent campaign to malign Mr. Combs.” They further allege that despite Burgess’ claims that he received the alleged videos from Combs’ late ex-girlfriend Kim Porter, he in fact had “no more than a passing acquaintance” with her.

Combs’ attorneys also claim that Burgess tried to capitalize on the highly publicized allegations swirling around Combs by posting a memoir allegedly written by Porter to Amazon, which they say later pulled the book after it “was denounced by Ms. Porter’s family and others as a fake,” according to the suit.

The lawsuit equally tries to discredit Mitchell — known for filing sexual assault cases against powerful men including Trey Songz, Chris Brown and Combs himself — by claiming her cases against Songz and Brown were disproven and that in “peddling false claims to media outlets” like NewsNation about the alleged videotapes of Combs, she “insisted on valuable benefits and payments in exchange for interviews, including first class air travel, four-star hotel accommodations, hair and makeup allowances, and a ‘materials fee’ for copies of, among other things, demand letters sent on behalf of one of her clients who sued Mr. Combs.”

They add that Mitchell spread her alleged lies about Combs far and wide, including in multiple NewsNation appearances and in a documentary about Combs titled The Making of a Bad Boy that aired on NBC’s Peacock streaming service earlier this month. (NBC is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)

“Defendants made these false and defamatory statements in bad faith, as part of a deliberate effort to damage Mr. Combs’s reputation, undermine his businesses and, by painting him as debauched and a pedophile, to poison the public’s perception of him and deprive him of a fair trial,” Combs’ attorneys conclude.

Combs is asking for “not less” than $50 million in damages.

Burgess, Mitchell and NewsNation did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.

Combs is currently imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ahead of his criminal trial, which is set to kick off on May 5. He is charged with running a multi-faceted criminal enterprise in order to satisfy his need for “sexual gratification.” Among other accusations, he is alleged to have held so-called “freak off” parties, during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.