The Calling, Alex Band on Parkinson’s, Their Return & New Album, 'Before the World Turns to Dust'!

Alex Band, founder and lead singer of The Calling, talks about his Parkinson’s diagnosis, the band’s 22-year wait for a new album, and why he refused to change The Calling’s sound just to follow whatever was popular. The Calling return with Before The World Turns To Dust, their first full-length album since 2004’s Two. Alex tells me he had been trying to make another Calling record for roughly 15 years, but label problems, his solo career and a serious health crisis kept getting in the way. The new 15-track album was produced by John Fields and features Alex alongside Daniel Damico and Dom Liberati. It arrives digitally September 25, 2026. We get into the new single “Dust” and why Alex sees it as the natural song for somebody who knows The Calling through “Wherever You Will Go.” He also talks about resisting years of pressure to make music that sounded like whatever happened to be current. Some of those songs, he says, simply didn’t sound like him. There’s a lot more behind this record than a comeback. Alex talks about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s at 30 and reaching a point where he says he couldn’t walk and spent roughly six months using a wheelchair. Years later, after treatment and significant improvement, new scans no longer showed the disease. Alex is careful about what that means: he says his doctors couldn’t tell him for certain whether the disease had gone dormant or whether the original diagnosis may instead have been Parkinson’s syndrome. One of the hardest parts of the conversation is “The Fool That You Are.” Alex wrote the song for his younger brother while his brother was struggling with drug use. His brother later died from an overdose during COVID, and Alex says the lyrics now line up with what eventually happened in a way he never could have expected. We also go back to “Wherever You Will Go,” which Alex wrote as a teenager. The song eventually spent 23 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart and has passed one billion Spotify streams. Alex remembers nearly emptying his bank account when the label was ready to stop pushing the single. Then we get into how much the music business has changed: streaming economics, buying physical music, touring, merchandise and what Alex thinks AI could mean for musicians over the next five years. Watch the episode and tell me what part of Alex Band’s story surprised you most. Subscribe to The Hang! for more conversations with the people behind the music. #AlexBand #thecalling #whereveryouwillgo #rockmusic #musicinterview #TheHang https://www.thecallingmusic.com   / thecalling     / thecallingmusic     / uce9acimhxipzge8z3vcrwyg   https://recordstoreday.com/UPC/823375... CHAPTERS 00:00 Alex Band and The Calling Return 02:20 Alex Band's Musical Beginnings and Getting Signed at 15 04:22 Why The Calling Waited 22 Years for Another Album 06:31 Refusing to Change The Calling's Sound 09:47 The Meaning Behind Before The World Turns To Dust 14:18 “The Fool That You Are” and the Loss of Alex's Brother 17:36 The Story Behind “Wherever You Will Go” and Star Trek use 21:50 Alex Band on His Parkinson's Diagnosis and Recovery 32:17 What's Next for The Calling 33:59 Streaming, AI and the Future of the Music Business The Hang! Podcast – Presented by Almost Famous Magazine https://www.almostfamousmagazine.com