Dane Clark and the Backroom Boys - Gurus, Hitmen and Heaven (2025)

This is the man that spent 26 years behind a drum kit with John Mellencamp, and walked away all the better for it. Clark’s new album is a wild round of head-knocking rockers, mid-tempo killers and everything else that a rock and roller can do. And before things really take off the airstrip, the inside-killer “Blame It on Kerouac” slips in to take the glory on the album. Which just happens to fit in with a Jack Kerouac reference that just happened to anonymously steal the show today: “Heaven’s time-worm eats at Brew’s vitals as mine, as yours; it’s hard enough to live in a world where you grow old and die. Why be disharmonious?” If that doesn’t turn on the Klieg lights, what does? Clark has a way of bringing the rough and the ready elements of rock & roll together in a way that stretches his past and future into one wonderful whole. His history of taking the A-ride in rock & roll with Mellencamp has prepared him for believing in himself, and everything he writes and sings on GURU, HITMEN AND HEAVEN feels like a 2025 essay on where we are today, after all the miles on the rock & roll highway. The future is up for grabs right now, and those that bring the honor they’ve earned in the past are the ones to listen to. That’s Dane Clark.