Latest news with #AJR
CNN
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Change Amplified: Live Music and the Climate Crisis on CNN
July 15th, 2025 EPISODE PREMIERES SUNDAY, JULY 20 AT 8PM ET/PT NEW YORK, NY – (July 15, 2025) – The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper , a six-time Emmy® Award-winning CNN Original, returns with a look at some of the biggest stars working to revolutionize the eco footprint of live music. 'Change Amplified: Live Music and the Climate Crisis' with CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir premieres Sunday, July 20 at 8pm ET/PT on CNN. Featuring Billie Eilish and her mother Maggie Baird, Bonnie Raitt, Jack Johnson, AJR's Adam Met and Perry Farrell formerly of Jane's Addiction, Weir traces the legacy of stars who are working to reform a live music industry that demands massive amounts of energy and produces tons of waste. From refillable water stations, plastic-free shows and even kinetic dance floors that turn the crowd's energy into electricity, eco-conscious musicians are leading a movement to make caring about the climate cool. Their influence is catching on, with Lollapalooza now operating its main stage with a battery-powered hybrid system that gets cleaner every year, and Coachella implementing their first zero carbon stage. 'As so many politicians and corporate leaders slink away from leadership on climate issues while the cultural influence of live music explodes, I set out to understand how a handful of devoted artists have managed to clean and green their industry in astounding ways,' Weir said. 'A music festival is like a temporary, disposable city so the lessons learned can be applied across society, and the connections being made with fellow fans have sparked a surprising new wave of grass roots connection and action.' Weir speaks with Billie Eilish behind-the-scenes during her stadium tour where she implements several eco-friendly initiatives, and meets up with her and Maggie Baird in the hills of Los Angeles where nonprofit Tree People plants shade in underserved communities and after wildfires. He also visits with Jack Johnson on his Kokua Learning Farm in Hawaii, created to connect kids with nature and fresh, healthy food. The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper is a collection of unique and immersive single subject, one-hour episodes from CNN's Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning longform storytelling team showcasing character-driven stories, special interviews, and investigative deep dives featuring reporting from CNN's anchors and correspondents . It is the Emmy® Award winner for Best Recorded News Program two years running, and is executive produced by Susan Chun. Weir previously reported from around the world for The Whole Story in 'Adaptation Nation,' 'What Whales Tell Us,' and the Emmy® nominated 'How to Unscrew a Planet.' The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper will stream live for pay TV subscribers via CNN connected TV and mobile apps on Sunday, July 20. 'Change Amplified: Live Music and the Climate Crisis' will also be available on demand beginning Monday, July 21 to pay TV subscribers via CNN connected TV and mobile apps, and Cable Operator Platforms. Past episodes of The Whole Story are available to stream on demand now on HBO Max. The Whole Story is also available as a CNN Podcasts showcast. Visit or listen wherever you get your podcasts. ### About CNN Originals The CNN Originals group develops, produces and acquires original, long-form unscripted programming for CNN Worldwide. Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent, CNN Originals and creative development, oversees the award-winning CNN Originals portfolio that includes the following premium content brands: CNN Original Series, CNN Films, CNN Flashdocs, and CNN Studios. Since 2012, the team has overseen and executive produced more than 60 multi-part documentary series and 70 feature-length documentary films, earning more than 120 awards and 450 nominations for the cable network, including CNN Films' first Academy Award® for Navalny . Acclaimed titles include the Peabody Award winning and 13-time Emmy® Award-winning Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown ; five time Emmy® nominee, Apollo 11 , directed by Todd Douglas Miller; Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid directed by Matt Tyrnauer; Emmy® nominated Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico ; the Emmy® Award-nominated 'Decades Series': The Sixties , The Seventies , The Eighties , The Nineties , The 2000s , and The 2010s, executive produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman; The Last Movie Stars , directed by Ethan Hawke about the lives and careers of actors and humanitarians Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman; the Emmy® Award winning Little Richard: I Am Everything , directed by Lisa Cortés; Luther Vandross: Never Too Much , directed by Dawn Porter; The Many Lives of Martha Stewart ; Primetime Emmy® and duPont-Columbia Award-winning, RBG , directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen; See It Loud: The History of Black Television , executive produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter; Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight in partnership with the BBC; the Producers Guild Award and three-time Emmy® Award-winning Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy ; T his is Life with Lisa Ling ; BAFTA nominee and Directors Guild Award winner, Three Identical Strangers , directed by Tim Wardle; the five-time Emmy® Award-winning United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell ; the American version of the long-running UK comedy series, Have I Got News For You , hosted by Roy Wood Jr; and the six-time Emmy® Award-winning The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper . CNN Originals can be seen on CNN, the CNN Original Hub on HBO Max and discovery+, the CNN Originals FAST channel, and for pay TV subscription via CNN apps and cable operator platforms. About Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ: WBD) is a leading global media and entertainment company that creates and distributes the world's most differentiated and complete portfolio of content and brands across television, film and streaming. Available in more than 220 countries and territories and 50 languages, Warner Bros. Discovery inspires, informs and entertains audiences worldwide through its iconic brands and products including: Discovery Channel, discovery+, CNN, DC, Eurosport, HBO, HGTV, Food Network, OWN, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Magnolia Network, TNT, TBS, truTV, Travel Channel, HBO Max, MotorTrend, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Warner Bros. Film Group, Warner Bros. Television Group, Warner Bros. Games, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies, Discovery en Español, Hogar de HGTV and others. For more information, please visit Press Contacts The Whole Story Press Contact Bill Weir Press Contact
Newsweek
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
'What Are We Scared To Say?': AJR On 'Betty' and 'What No One's Thinking'
Multiplatinum trio AJR has been burning the house down lately. Composed of brothers Adam, Jack and Ryan Met, the trio of musicians grew up in New York City, where they made a name for themselves through busking and tap dancing. In 2016, they released their acclaimed EP What Everyone's Thinking, a collection of songs that amalgamate a range of sounds from electronic to hip-hop. The EP spawned the hit single "Weak," and those five songs would go on to find their place on the band's second album, The Click. Ryan and Jack spoke with Newsweek about their new single, "Betty," which comes as the lead single for their recently announced EP What No One's Thinking, set to release on August 29. While not working on music together, the group is performing around the world, having just traveled to China and Italy. "This is probably the most we've traveled, in like the most the amount of countries we travel in the shortest amount of time, most time zones we've hit in a week," Jack said. But that's not the entirety of their collective commitments. Musical trio AJR (from left) Olly, Adam Met, Jack Met and Ryan Met Musical trio AJR (from left) Olly, Adam Met, Jack Met and Ryan Met Busy On and Off Broadway The busy brothers carve out time during flights to "lock in" on their other duties, including working on a Broadway production. "We're doing a Broadway adaptation of 'Harold and the Purple Crayon.' And so it's originally a children's book about a baby that has a magical purple crayon. And we have this idea about five years ago, it takes so long to make a show, but we had this idea to sort of age him up and kind of show what happens to you when you're an adult, and you sort of can't draw your problems magically away when life gets too real," Ryan said. "We've been working on it for about five years, and we have a writer and director and putting it all together. It's a fun, different challenge from the AJR stuff, because we're just constantly putting ourselves in someone else's shoes, putting ourselves in the dad character's point of view. What is he feeling? What is a 60-year-old who has deferred his dreams in life? What is he feeling right now? Sort of totally opposite from us writing the AJR stuff, which is so inward, which is so 'How am I reacting to the world around me right now?'" Beyond that, the artists are set to head out on tour once more with their upcoming "Somewhere in the Sky Tour" with a swath of their favorite bands in tow. The tour includes a stop at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, a first for the group. Regardless of their location, though, hitting the road is a key part of the brothers' experience. "Touring is our favorite thing to do. We consider it sort of equal to the music. It's not really like the cherry on top for us. We've always said that we make the music as almost like the score to the Broadway show, which is our tour," Jack said. But that's not the only connection between Broadway and the brothers' touring efforts. "Broadway influence is like, so, so big in our live shows. You know, you leave a show in New York or on Broadway going, Wow, they did this, and they did this, and there was this up moment and down moment, and they use these special effects. And there's so many things that you can think about for the next, like month," Jack said. "And you know, when we first started touring, we were like, 'Why can't that also be a live concert? Why can't people also leave feeling like that with a show?' And then from then on, it's been, you know, we do play all our songs and all the, you know, the fan favorites, but we really try to work in as much crazy production and magic and Broadway elements and unpredictable moments as possible. So people really leave going, 'Oh my God, that was really an experience.'" The Met brothers of AJR. From left: Ryan, Jack and Adam Met. The Met brothers of AJR. From left: Ryan, Jack and Adam Met. AJR/Kyle Berger What's In a Name? When it comes to EP names, it's easy to imagine a grand plan that's existed for as long as the project has been in the works. For the Met brothers, this one was a bit different. "We didn't have the name 'What No One's Thinking' the whole time we're writing the EP. Actually, we came up with it basically toward the end, when we had four out of the five songs done. I think it feels very much like a successor to we had a EP 10 years ago called 'What Everyone's Thinking,'" Ryan said. "That EP, I think, really put AJR on the map in a lot of ways, because the first album we made was just kind of like us experimenting, 'Maybe we're like Billy Joel, or maybe we're like this, or maybe we're like this,' and then with 'Everyone's Thinking' EP we were like, 'OK, we're the band that is not afraid to say a lot of these embarrassing things that no one's saying but everybody's thinking.' And that really jump started our career in a lot of ways, and really allowed us to have a voice and a point of view in the music industry that we felt like no one else had." Things, however, change over time; just ask the trio about that. "Now we're just at a different place in our lives, for whatever reason, our level of confidence or how much we've been through now, we're very much about less trying to appeal to 'This is what everyone's thinking.' And more like, 'What are we scared to say?'" Ryan said. "I think me and Jack were really obsessed this time around with making music that you felt as opposed to thought about. And it's kind of an interesting distinction. It's probably just where we're at in our lives right now. I think in the past, we've loved these kind of clever ideas of like, we have a song called Inertia that we love, but it's like 'Here's a scientific concept applied to a bunch of different scenarios in life.' That's all very like cerebral, like, 'I need to think about it to enjoy it.' This whole EP for us was like, 'Even if the grammar is wrong, even if it's a little messy, if I'm feeling something that I never knew I could feel before.'" Facing Real Fears One of the fears the AJR is ready to tackle? Commitment. "'Betty,' specifically, we had a lot of conversations about, sort of the idea of committing forever, whatever that means where we're at in our lives. Whether it's relationship or job or just grappling with the idea of this choice I'm making now is for the rest of my life, that's your late 20s and your early 30s, and not everybody's ready to do that. And me and Jack specifically are very not ready to do that. We're very young in a lot of ways, so this was kind of a song us talking to our significant others. It's just something we really felt in the moment," Ryan said. "We've been through a lot in the past few years. We've suffered a big loss. Family stuff, with friends, stuff with our career, and it's been a lot. And we realized we weren't really talking about it much. We definitely weren't talking about it in our music. And I think just through working, we realized, 'Oh my god,' like 'Betty' specifically, it kind of just popped into our head, like, 'Wait, I've been feeling this, like overwhelming sense of fear about commitment. And about the idea of forever. How are we not writing about that? That has to be it,'" Jack added. The "Somewhere in the Sky Tour" kicks off July 18 in Sparks, Nevada.
BBC News
20-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Holocaust survivors' families visit former Kent refugee site
Families of Holocaust survivors have visited a Kent army base that helped rescue thousands of Jewish members of the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) visited the Kitchener Camp at Sandwich on Thursday, which had been a haven from the Nazis for their parents and grandparents in group also saw an exhibition at the town's Guildhall Museum which had materials from the Kitchener Camp Project – an online resource bringing together records and family treasures to build a picture of the unlikely website's founder Clare Weissenberg described the day's visit as "profound". "Werner, my father, always kept a suitcase of letters, documents and photographs under the bed at home, all of which never saw the light of day," she said."I was in my early 20s when he died, which is when I found paperwork with the German eagle insignia stamped on it."So I began wondering about his story."Whilst volunteering at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London, Ms Weissenberg met the author Clare Ungerson, who had been chronicling the lives of families just like hers. Hearing tales of some 4,000 others who had similarly fled to Kent to escape Hitler's campaign of ethnic cleansing was like "a cork being taken out of a bottle", she said."Afterwards I set up a Kitchener Camp website and got a great response from all over, with people sending me their own experiences."It really seemed to grab everyone's imagination and I gradually built a picture of this largely forgotten and overlooked piece of history."The Kitchener Camp rescue began in February 1939, seven months before the outbreak of World War Two and shortly after the Nazis coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken rescue was founded and run by the same, mainly Jewish, aid organisations that funded and coordinated the far better known Kindertransport scheme. Stephen Nelken said his father Lothar had escaped fascism and a lengthy internment at a concentration camp. "I found his diary from when he left Germany and came to Kitchener Camp," said Mr Nelken, adding that the people of Sandwich had been "very welcoming" to his dad - even buying him and his fellow refugees a round of pints at the local pub."It's really important to know what went on and that it is passed onto his grandchildren as well," he Ungerson, whose book Four Thousand Lives is about the Kitchener Camp, said she was "surprised how few of these men's descendants knew anything of what happened to their fathers, grandfathers and uncles"."And, to be so at ease with having a camp of refugees in its midst, Sandwich must have been an extraordinary place," she added.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Summerfest in Milwaukee adds two new artists to replace former headliner Nessa Barrett
Summerfest in Milwaukee has added two artists to the lineup after pop singer Nessa Barrett dropped out of her headlining slot. Claire Rosinkranz and Sofia Camara — two emerging pop singers whose songs have found success on TikTok — will now perform at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard June 26, fest officials revealed June 12. Camara's set is at 8:45 p.m.; Rosinkranz will close out the stage at 10 p.m. Barrett had been booked to play the 10 p.m. slot on the stage June 26 but dropped out of the lineup June 6 due to "a scheduling conflict," according to a Facebook post on the Summerfest page. It's just one of the headliner shakeups that fest officials have had to work through as the Big Gig's opening day, June 19, approaches. On June 4, country-rock band Whiskey Myers announced it could no longer headline Summerfest's Miller Lite Oasis June 21 due to a family matter. Fest officials confirmed on Facebook the band will play Summerfest in 2026, with details to be announced. On June 12, a replacement for Whiskey Myers was revealed — rapper and singer (and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum) Yung Gravy, who has also dipped into country, including a collaboration with Shania Twain. Gravy is used to saving the day at Summerfest. In 2023, after headlining the festival's Generac Power Stage, he was recruited to lead a free show at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater after the previously lined-up fill-in, AJR, had to cancel because of illness in the family. AJR had been promoted to amphitheater headliner when Summerfest's first choice for the date, ailing pop legend Jimmy Buffett, pulled out. Also on June 12, Summerfest officials revealed on Facebook that hip-hop veterans Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony would no longer perform the Aurora Pavilion's primary headlining slot at 7 p.m. June 19 "due to unforeseen circumstances." The group has been replaced by rapper Bow Wow. It's the second headliner to drop out from a show on that Summerfest stage this year. In May, singer-songwriter Julien Baker canceled her summer tour including a June 27 co-headlining show with Torres. Torres was rebooked for a solo set on that stage earlier in the day, and Rubblebucket was added to the original Baker-Torres slot. Summerfest will take place at Maier Festival Park June 19 to 21, June 26 to 28 and July 3 to 5. Chris Foran of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee's Summerfest replaces former headliner with two new artists
Forbes
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Can Music Fans Save The Planet? Adam Met of Indie-Pop Band AJR Thinks So
Adam Met, one-third of indie-pop trio AJR, performs on stage in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2022. ... More The band kicks off a new tour on July 18. When musician Adam Met peers out at the audience from the stage of one of his shows, he doesn't just see many thousands of fans pulsing to the beat of his band's catchy indie-pop tunes. He sees an army of potential change makers who could help save the planet. Met — the bass player and background vocalist for the NYC-based multiplatinum band AJR — is also a climate advocate with a PhD in human rights and sustainable development who teaches about climate campaigning and policy at Columbia University and worked with Congress and the White House on a bipartisan energy bill recently introduced into the Senate. Fans tend to be passionate types, driven to share what they love both online and in person, and that devotion positions them as natural candidates to champion issues they care about, Met said over the phone from his home on New York's Upper West Side on Friday. 'If we can use this power for good, we can take those people who are hyperpassionate and have them share across their different platforms,' said the 34-year-old musician, the 'A' in AJR, which he co-founded with younger brothers Jack and Ryan. 'They become micro-influencers for the causes themselves.' Cultivating this fan-to-activist trajectory is a central theme of Met's new book Amplify: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World. Drawing from his own experience growing a fan base — as he and his siblings progressed from performing in living rooms and busking on New York street corners to playing stadiums worldwide — he offers a blueprint for boosting awareness and igniting action, especially when it comes to saving the planet. Adam Met's new book "Amplify" takes its name from an initiative aimed at mobilizing fans at live ... More events to take action on causes like climate change. The book, out June 3, includes research into social movements and the power of live events and interviews with a range of artists, organizers and thinkers — among them, musician Ben Folds, comedian Jim Gaffigan, former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang, scientist and entertainer Bill Nye, computer scientist and inventor Astro Teller and conservative commentator Glenn Beck, who attended an AJR show in Dallas and speaks with Met about the power of knowing your audience. 'We need fresh thinking to accelerate social change, particularly around climate, and the ideas in this book are creative and easy to implement,' political analyst, lawyer and author Van Jones said of Amplify. The book takes its name from the Amplify initiative created by Planet Reimagined — the nonprofit Met co-founded to train and catalyze future climate leaders. The project aims to mobilize and empower audiences at live events to push for systemic change. The Amplify push grew out of a Planet Reimagined study of the same name, conducted in collaboration with Ticketmaster, iHeartRadio, Green Nation and Reverb, an organization dedicated to creating a more sustainable music industry. The study polled thousands of live-music fans and found that three out of four care about climate change, support artists taking action on the issue and are ready to follow suit, especially when encouraged by their favorite musicians. Last summer, AJR turned concerts on their national 21-city tour into on-site civic and political activist hubs where fans could register to vote, sign petitions, call their representatives urging them to vote for climate-positive policies, make donations and learn about local volunteer opportunities. Fifteen percent of the people who walked through the doors of AJR shows joined the effort. 'I know 15 doesn't sound really big, but that is a huge percentage of people who are coming through the venue actually taking some sort of action,' Met said, adding that in the end, around 35,000 concertgoers made a climate-related move. Fans in Colorado wrote to the state legislature in support of phasing out fracking, for example, and in Wisconsin, they pledged to vote no on two state constitutional amendments that would have made it harder for the state to address climate change. Both amendments were later defeated. Performing in Clarkston, Michigan, are AJR members from left Ryan, Jack and Adam Met. On tours, the ... More band mobilizes its audience to join to fight for climate justice. Other artists are now adopting the Amplify model, including Grammy winner Billie Eilish, who will implement it on her U.K. tour this summer. Eilish did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the singer/songwriter has emerged as a vocal advocate for climate action who often addresses the topic in her music and on social media and has donated a portion of her tour ticket sales to climate justice initiatives. Among artists, Met believes musicians are uniquely positioned to tell the sort of impactful stories that can trigger emotion and action. That's because their work doesn't rely solely on the music itself, but weaves visual art, merchandise and live performance into a multi-sensory message. 'When you see someone like Billie Eilish posting about climate change on Instagram and having music about it and incorporating it into her show,' he said, 'it really screams authenticity.' Though Met's brothers Jack and Ryan write AJR's songs, they share his commitment to climate advocacy, and lines that reference it have made their way into at least one of the trio's tunes. 'I was gonna save the planet, but today I got plans,' bops a line from fan favorite song 'Inertia,' off of the band's fifth studio album The Maybe Man. The line has particular resonance for Met in 2025. 'As the administration changed in January, I saw more and more people start to become more and more apathetic,' he said. 'It's disappointing, but I think that every time a door closes, five others open. I'm an eternal optimist in terms of climate.' Fueling that optimism is the power of decision making at the local level. 'Community boards and local legislators decide on what zoning looks like, on what agriculture looks like, on where the next petrochemical plant gets placed, on what local transportation looks like and how that's electrified or not electrified, how the gas and utility companies are allowed to do what they're doing,' Met said. 'Those are decisions that you have so much power over.' One of the first things Met suggests to anyone who approaches him expressing an interest in tackling climate change, in fact, is to think locally, and to find the role where they can hold the most sway. 'So many people say, 'Oh, I want to start a campaign,' and I always say 'Look around to see what everyone else is doing first,' because your contribution might be so much more effective if you join something that's already gotten off the ground. He'll be reinforcing that message on AJR's upcoming tour, which starts July 18, and on his book tour, kicking off this week. The latter will include some of the very strategies he addresses in the volume — gamification, entertainment and creating the energetic sense of community prone to inspire collective action. Clearly this is not someone hindered by the kind of inertia his band playfully describes in song. So how does Met manage to juggle his many roles? On the morning we spoke, he'd been up since 4 a.m., but that was hardly evident from the energy or enthusiasm in his voice. 'I sleep very rarely,' he said. 'When you love all of these different things enough, you just make it work.' Adam Met accepts Time magazine's Time Earth Award in 2024. The award recognizes people whose work ... More influences the future of the planet.
