Rival Sons are a great rock band. They should be far better known. Yet the token ‘rock’ band in the awards shows seems to be Foo Fighters. Even Dave Grohl has made that comment.

Some contemporary bands I’d consider to be “rock” which I enjoy: Elder, All Them Witches, Slift, Russian Circles, El Shirota, Yvette Young, Marnie Stern, Palm, Preoccupations, Black Midi, Wand. I’m not presenting this list to argue that rock is popular, most are lesser known artists, but have achieved success on the KEXP/Audiotree level. People into the stoner rock, post punk, and math rock worlds are going to know some of those bands for sure. I think there are plenty of interesting rock albums getting released if you are willing to look slightly harder. I feel like there are some interesting rock sub-genres bubbling out there below the radar of the larger music press etc. Just my $0.02.

there is an interesting paradox going on, where on the one hand you talk about there's no new/young genre defining artists (or scenes) anymore, but on the other hand you mention newer artist and say "but that's not really rock n roll". Not saying I have the answers because at 35 I'm old enough to "not know what the kids these days listen to". Could be that social identities are not so tied to music genres anymore? Yet both are existing.

The Black Keys was probably the last big guitar band, 2010-2014. But famously they had to cancel their stadium tour this year. Not a lot I can think of in the past decade though.

Ya’ll are forgetting john mayer who seems to still have a healthy following.

Plush is a good new guitar band

The Sheepdogs..... great rock n roll band from Canada. Blackberry Smoke is another one. There are still great bands out there, just harder to initially discover them now.

That Slash album is dude rock for sure

So, to give you my input on the first subject (you did ask!), I think that there is a lot of 'rock' stars out there but they're maybe just not playing exactly the music of GnR etc. I think it's really interesting about what Matthew said that 'American Idiot' was the last true Rock album. It's really interesting because what I think that opened the door for was the next generations of Emo bands to work their way in (which I at the time described as pop-punk and I'm sure no matter what genre I list here, someone would disagree with me) to the youth with songs like Boulevard of Broken Dreams and Holiday. These were bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, Paramore, Panic! At The Disco, You Me At Six, A Day To Remember (although some argue they are more on the Metal end of things) - some of the pathway had already been laid by bands like Sum41, Bowling for Soup and blink-182. Those are the bands that are headlining your festivals now (apart from P!ATD who broke up last year - I'm still bitter about it... 😂) and are continuing the 'rockstar' lifestyle. I think since then we've had another couple of developments in that area, (ironically, which was more traditional to the original 'punk movement') where Midwest Emo bands like Modern Baseball, American Football, Tiny Moving Parts started to at the very least gain popularity (and later followed up by bands like TRSH, Mom Jeans, and other such bands) - but rejected the idea of 'becoming famous and doing loads of drugs and sleeping with lots of women'. I think the story that I'm trying to form here is that the music industry, and Rock and Roll, is like a breathing machine. We take a big breath (or huff, if you want to make a drug reference) in of popularity, money, fame, we see the results and the effects that leave on people and we breathe out, rejecting everything that we've just inhaled. Now, we are once again starting to see the machine start to breathe in again, with bands like Dexter and the Moonrocks, Hot Mulligan, Neck Deep, Chase Petra - and I'm personally hoping for Primrose to be the next ones to really make it big as I think the drummer/singer/song-writer has some real talent and I really like their stuff - all "making it" (signing record contracts, going on massive tours, living off of music). Unfortunately, we will see similar, if not the exact same results as the people before them. The industry will chew them up and then spit them out as if they never even really existed, and the young kids of today that love them will see that and begin to reject the idea of being a rockstar, and the machine will begin to breathe out again. I think just to quickly talk about the 'Guitar Gods' conversation, there is definitely people out there and I think you guys would have got here eventually - people like Tim Henson, Rabea Massaad, Manuel Gardner-Fernandes - they're all the equivalent modern day guitar gods. To me at least.

You could make an argument for The Marcus King Band being at the forefront of rock and roll today.

I’ve seen king gizzard and the lizard wizard sell out everything from small venues to a days long stay at red rocks. They’re not traditional rock stars but they put out an average of 3 albums a year and tour almost nonstop.

Listening to Tim Henson, Plini, and Tosin really got me back into guitar. Indeed, Quad Cortex seem to have a good eye for guitarists who are the modern stars and are trying to do something different. They may not sell pedals as they are all digital natives but they help sell being a guitarist and that ultimately will lead people to pedals and amps.

Matthew did great

You know as AI gets more advanced I think that the movement towards live music and the dream to do so will grow

Black Country Communion and Dead Dasies are some of my favorited new rock recordings I listen to. Older musicians but still pumping out great rock music. 😬🎸👍

Big. Hairy. Projects.

This might be a hot take, but the Gaslight Anthem really bridges vintage with modern in a tasteful way. From their choice of gear to lyrical content.

Dirty Honey, Solid active rock band!!

So for "the" rock bands my initial thought was Rival Sons, Royal Blood, The 1975 & BoyGenius. And BoyGenius is where the realization was. For me when I think "Rockstar" now....I think Women. Every visible guitarist right now is a woman. St Vincent, Nita Strauss, Yvette Young, everyone in BoyGenius, Madison Cunningham, The Warning, HER, the seemingly endless supply of women who's last name is Wolfe (Emily, Chelsea, Ava, Sarah etc). And that's completely ignoring the various Japanese & Korean genres of rock, metal & pop which bank (in a less than ethical sometimes) way on women. It's every guitar driven genre & more importantly when those non-guitar driven groups want a visible guitarist, unless you're a guy named Matteus, it's a woman. The future is femme....just like it was during Glam Rock but this time they're legit women not men with bad morals in drag.

The last big "rock" records that were part of the "cultural zeitgeist" were probably Green Day - American Idiot, maybe Kings of Leon - Only by the Night? To answer Matthew's question, whose filling that "Grammy show rock slot", or as I like to call it, the "Foo Fighters spot"... I'd say its probably Greta Van Fleet or Paramore. One reason I never really hear mentioned as to why bands are kind of gone, is the fact its easier to be the sole songwriter and hire a band, than to have 4 or 5 equal contributors. It's also a far better financial decision to NOT have a band these days, and not have to split whatever little income you generate with other band members.

Zach, If you need custom cables, check out Runway Audio of Nashville. You can choose length and connector types for each end. At $12 a piece, they are IMHO reasonable in cost. I have Runway patch, instrument and speaker cables and am very happy with all of them.

I dunno about y'all but im movin to Huntsville AL., becoming a part of the local music scene there, and enjoying the rest of my days playing Prog-Fusion for rocket scientists, sippin on pina coladas and enjoying not paying a fortune just to exist in a studio apartment. Mid City District seems to have potential. Feel free to join me guys.

Instead of Door Knob, how bout Mythos Door Bell Fuzz? Its a Fine Line :-)

My new band - "Zeitgeist of Musicdom".

JoBo? Halestorm? What about Nita Strauss? Rabea Massad opens up form Stormzy? Cardinal Black (coming to US this year)- and Chris Buck uses Mythos pedals already. Lots of smaller bands coming through - particular favourite Brave Rival. We consume our music in a different way now and it doesnt pay to promote that rock star image.

Only my opinion of course, but I think The Warning is the best rock band on the planet right now. They seem well on their way to becoming bonafide rockstars too.

There’s guys like Rival Sons, Marcus King, Ghost, GvF etc. who are newer and doing well. I’d give a big recommendation for people to listen to DeWolff, they’re brilliant, their last album was their best yet and they’ve got a new album wrapped up that they just recorded in Muscle Shoals. Royal Blood, Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys etc. had albums hit high on the mainstream charts about a decade ago. The big thing is ‘smaller’, independent artists can get much higher reach thanks to social media etc. Your 2004-ish date is around the cut off between pre-internet label-backed bands being pushed and stuff like MySpace/Facebook/KZfaq/music streaming allowing independents to reach their audience. Means the audiences are spread much more into their niches rather than having to like whatever is picked up and pushed by labels with the rest of the bands only being able to stay local and then fading without a label backing them. It’s great cause it allows guys like Josh Smith, Kirk Fletcher, Jared James Nichols to be more than just exist as backing guys for established label-signed artists or pop acts and doesn’t leave them as being ‘local legends’ that never sell-out if they leave their state/country.

Whiskey Myers gets thrown into the Country genre a lot because of some of their early songs, but that’s a straight up guitar rock band, with two great guitarist.

Who is it that makes me want to rock out? Gibsons and Marshall amps? Blackberry Smoke! I agree they are not exactly mainstream but, they should be. 🤘🏻

Foals are pretty big in the UK

We have the opposite problem, there's an over abundance of really really great new music out there,but there is so much competition. Not only with their peers, but with streaming they're competing with nearly 60 years of rock music. as a snapshot of the stuff, just on my playlist today: Royal Blood The Beths All Them Witches Wet Leg Metz DZ Deathray IDLES Sprints Dead Poet Society.

Turnstile is crushing right now. Mk.gee isn’t a rock star but is for sure a guitar hero. The 1975 is a guitar band. Paramore released an incredibly creative guitar album. Bleachers is like a pop Springsteen revival. They aren’t in stadiums but the women are killing it right now too, squirrel flower, soccer mommy, Julien baker, waxahatchee, madison cunningham etc. If rock is dead I’m cool with it

Foo fighters, you have bands like periphery and polyphia that inspire the youth. Billy strings. You might need to move genres from rock to metal. Sleep token ,failing in reverse , spiritbox

I agree that "Rockstars" can market products, but Rockstars and (poor) gigging musicians do not amount to many sales. The day-job musicians and "blues lawyers" [accountants, doctors, Josh Scott😅] who can afford it, thankfully keep the industry alive, ensuring wonderful products are available for everyone.

Jared James Nichols is Da Man

A double dose of dosa

Would Rival Sons count as modern rock band. Maybe not a headliner, but they could be.

You guys gotta sling some Mythos to Ben McLeod from All Them Witches. Bluesy stoner gat lord 🔥 He got the flava both MT and ZB would love.

Keep the what you selling what you buying segment…

The Warning are one of the new bands I listen to.

The rockstar dream ended for me 30 years ago

Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium was the last one. 2006. Just after American Idiot, but in general agreed on the era of transition.

MT needs a Sunn 0))) Model T

Sleep token is probably the biggest guitar band right now?

I like a lot of the bands mentioned here, but they aren't mainstream. The one I can think of right now is Maneskin, not much of a fan though

king gizzard is the only modern rock band that has that kind of huge cult following

Big "rock band"...Ghost.

In europe the main headliners are the usual suspects: Priest, Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Scorpions, etc. even the „new“ bands are 20 years old.

Maneskin sells out i think…???

I like the new band Nirvana

Slash says it's cool to make music and not make money. So cool of the old music millionaire to say YOU shouldn't be worried about money as he sells another overpriced run of guitars.

rock music kinda sucks to be fair

anti-doorknob manufacturing propaganda!