Joseph Hudak
Contact Joseph Hudak on X Contact Joseph Hudak by Email View all posts by Joseph Hudak July 14, 2026
Charlie Starr talks 25 years of Blackberry Smoke in a new episode of Rolling Stone's Nashville Now podcast. Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images Blackberry Smoke are celebrating 25 years as a band with a summer tour that will take them from New York to Nashville and on to Canada. Many of those dates feature a very special opener: Jason Newsted, the former Metallica bassist who now fronts his own Chophouse Band.
In a new episode of Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr and Newsted talk about how they met, why they make sense together on the road, and the struggles they’ve faced in their respective bands. For Blackberry Smoke, it was the devastating loss of founding drummer Brit Turner in 2024 after a battle with cancer of the brain. Despite the tragedy, Starr says Turner was adamant about the group carrying on, and they brought in Kent Aberle to play when Turner couldn’t.
View this post on Instagram
“Brit was like, ‘We’re not stopping, ok?’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ We brought in Kent Aberle then, who was shadowing Brit and he was working and teching, and warming up with him. He knew I will play when he can’t, and Brit knew that too,” Starr says.
For Starr, the most brutal part was seeing his friend and bandmate unable to play.
“Brit knew he was losing his motor skills. It was so crazy to talk to somebody that knows this is happening to them,” he says. “He was like, ‘I can’t hold onto my drumsticks anymore…’ And there were certain songs he was like, ‘Can we please not play this?’ I didn’t even know I knew what to say to him, but it was, ‘We’ll do whatever the fuck you want to do. I’m so glad you’re here.’”
Starr and Newsted talk at length about how cancer has affected them or people they love. Newsted was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2025, which he talks at length about on Nashville Now. Watch the full episode below.
