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‘Shotgun‘ is the debut single from UK rock band Brisan, bringing together hard rock, southern rock, with classic and doomy under tones in a song that hits hard. “‘Shotgun‘ is a middle finger to the lies and the people who think they can get away with anything. A world full of smoke, mirrors and manufactured […]

The post Brisan Release Their Debut Single ‘Shotgun’ On November 6th appeared first on ROCKPOSER DOT COM.

September is one of the best months to visit Hawaii. The ocean is warm, summer crowds have started to thin out, and there is still plenty of sunshine for beach days, snorkeling and exploring the islands. May comes very close, especially if you prefer slightly cooler weather and want to travel before the summer holiday rush.

But the month you choose can change your entire trip. Someone heading to Kauai for a boat tour along the Na Pali Coast has good reasons to visit during summer, when ocean conditions are generally calmer. A traveler hoping to see humpback whales should book between December and April instead.

Hawaii stays warm throughout the year, with average daytime temperatures near 85°F in summer and 78°F in winter. Rainfall and ocean conditions change with the seasons, and the weather can vary considerably between different parts of the same island.

September and May Are the Best Months for Most Visitors

September offers an appealing combination of warm weather and fewer visitors than the busiest summer weeks. Schools have reopened across much of the United States, making it easier to enjoy popular beaches without the same summer holiday crowds.

The weather is still well suited to swimming and outdoor activities. September falls within Hawaii’s warmer, generally drier season, and the water has had the summer months to warm up.

There is also a financial advantage. Traveling after the summer rush can improve your chances of finding reasonably priced accommodation, particularly when dates are flexible. 

The official fall travel guide identifies September through November as a period with fewer visitors and opportunities for lower travel costs.

May is another excellent choice. Winter rainfall has generally eased, temperatures are comfortable, and the large summer holiday crowds have not yet arrived.

Travelers who enjoy hiking may particularly appreciate May. The weather is generally pleasant for visiting Waimea Canyon on Kauai, exploring Maui’s scenic routes or walking through the volcanic areas of Hawaii Island.

September has a slight advantage for warmer ocean water, while May is attractive for travelers who prefer to avoid the hottest part of summer.

The Best Things to Do in Hawaii and When to Experience Them

Some Hawaiian experiences are available throughout the year, but several are considerably better during particular months. Ocean conditions are especially important for snorkeling, surfing and boat excursions.

Swimming and Snorkeling From May Through September

Summer brings calmer conditions to many north-facing beaches, making previously rough stretches of coastline more suitable for swimming and snorkeling.

Hanalei Bay on Kauai, for example, can experience powerful winter surf but becomes considerably calmer during many summer days. Oahu’s North Shore follows a similar seasonal cycle.

For snorkeling, visitors can explore places such as Hanauma Bay on Oahu or sheltered beaches along the western and southern coasts of Maui. Conditions still need checking before entering the ocean, as currents and unexpected swells occur throughout the year.

Whale Watching From December Through April

Humpback whales migrate to Hawaiian waters during winter to breed and give birth. January through March generally offers excellent viewing opportunities, although whales can arrive earlier and remain into spring.

Kauai is a beautiful island for watching whales from a boat, with departures offering views of the Na Pali coastline. 

Visitors interested in such experience can explore Humpback Whale Watching Kauai during the winter migration season.

Whales can also be spotted from shore. On Kauai, Poipu Beach and Kilauea Lighthouse are established viewing locations, according to the island whale-watching information.

For boat trips, morning departures can offer calmer conditions than afternoon excursions, although winter swells may still affect sailing schedules. Whale sightings are never guaranteed.

Watching Big Waves on Oahu From November Through February

Winter changes the North Shore of Oahu into one of the world’s most famous surfing destinations.

Waimea Bay, Sunset Beach and Banzai Pipeline attract experienced surfers when large Pacific swells reach the coast. Even without entering the water, watching powerful waves from a safe viewing area can be memorable.

The same beaches may be unsuitable for swimming during those periods. Hawaii’s ocean safety guide explains that winter swells create dangerous conditions along many northern and western shores, while southern beaches generally experience smaller surf.

Exploring Volcanoes and Scenic Trails

Hawaii Island offers one of the most unusual outdoor experiences in the United States. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park contains volcanic craters, lava fields and walking trails through landscapes shaped by eruptions.

May and September are appealing months for exploring the park without the busiest holiday crowds. Visitors interested in seeing active volcanic activity should follow current park and geological updates, as eruptions cannot be scheduled around travel plans.

On Maui, sunrise at Haleakala is another popular experience. Anyone driving to the summit for sunrise must arrange a reservation in advance, with the National Park Service reservation system releasing tickets up to 60 days before the visit.

Hawaii Weather Month by Month

Hawaii has two main weather seasons. May through October is generally warmer and drier, while November through April brings cooler temperatures and more rainfall.

Here is how the year compares for planning a holiday.

Rainfall varies considerably by location. Windward areas facing the prevailing trade winds receive more rain than sheltered coastal resorts. A rainy morning near Hilo on Hawaii Island does not mean visitors staying around Kona will experience the same conditions.

Which Hawaiian Island Should You Visit?

Choosing the island can be just as important as choosing the month. Oahu offers city entertainment and famous beaches, while Kauai attracts visitors interested in dramatic coastal scenery and hiking.

Hawaii’s appeal extends beyond tourism. The islands also ranked first for overall happiness in a recent comparison of U.S. states by work-life balance and happiness, despite their high cost of living.

Oahu for Beaches, Restaurants and Nightlife

Oahu is an appealing choice for a first visit, particularly for travelers who want plenty to do without constantly changing hotels.

Waikiki has hotels, restaurants, shopping and live entertainment within walking distance of its beaches. Honolulu also has museums, historic attractions and a substantial restaurant scene.

May and September work particularly well for visitors hoping to spend time at Waikiki and explore the island. December through February is better for those interested in watching major surfing events on the North Shore.

Maui for Beach Resorts and Scenic Drives

Maui offers beaches around Wailea and Kaanapali, along with the mountainous scenery of Haleakala and the winding Road to Hana.

May is particularly appealing for a vacation combining beaches and outdoor exploration. September is also attractive for swimming and relaxing at coastal resorts.

For winter visitors, Maui is a major whale-watching destination, especially around the waters between Maui, Lanai and Molokai.

Kauai for Coastal Scenery and Boat Trips

Kauai has a quieter atmosphere than Honolulu, with dramatic mountains, rainforest scenery and the towering cliffs of the Na Pali Coast.

Summer is generally preferable for boat trips along the northern coastline because winter ocean swells can be severe. September is also worth considering, although sailing conditions depend on the weather.

Travelers primarily interested in whales should choose winter instead, accepting that some ocean excursions may face rougher water.

Hawaii Island for Volcanoes and Varied Scenery

The largest Hawaiian island offers black sand beaches, volcanic landscapes, coffee farms and substantial changes in climate between coastal and inland areas.

Kona and the Kohala Coast provide access to sunny beaches, while Hilo receives considerably more rainfall and has lush tropical scenery.

For travelers who want beaches and sightseeing without the busiest holiday periods, the official island travel information identifies January through May and September through November as appealing periods.

When Is Hawaii Less Expensive to Visit?

 

Traveling outside major school holidays generally improves your chances of finding lower hotel rates and more flexible flight choices.

May, September and portions of October are sensible periods to compare first. December holiday travel, spring break and the busiest summer weeks can bring heavier demand.

However, prices vary by island, resort and individual dates. A major festival, conference or sporting event can increase accommodation costs even during a quieter travel period.

Hawaii’s visitor numbers also change from month to month. For example, official visitor statistics recorded 690,858 arrivals in September 2025, down 2.5% from the same month the previous year.

Booking several months ahead gives travelers more opportunities to compare flights and hotels. If September prices are unusually high for the dates you want, compare nearby weeks in May or October rather than assuming one month always offers the lowest rates.

Rental cars deserve attention too, particularly on Kauai and Hawaii Island, where attractions can be widely separated. A cheaper hotel may not save money if reaching beaches and restaurants requires lengthy drives every day.

Is It Safe to Visit Hawaii During Hurricane Season?

The Central Pacific hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, with peak activity generally occurring between July and September.

Most visits during those months do not involve a hurricane, but tropical storms can disrupt flights, create dangerous surf and bring heavy rainfall. Travelers booking during hurricane season should consider flexible accommodation policies and suitable travel insurance.

The National Weather Service hurricane information identifies July through September as the peak period for Central Pacific tropical cyclone activity.

September remains an attractive month for a holiday, but the possibility of tropical weather is one reason to avoid making expensive, nonrefundable arrangements without checking the cancellation terms.

The Bottom Line

For most travelers, September gets the first recommendation. The beaches are inviting, the ocean is warm and the summer holiday rush has eased. May is nearly as appealing and suits people who prefer slightly cooler temperatures.

If your main goal is watching humpback whales, February is an excellent choice. For boat excursions along the Na Pali Coast or calmer summer conditions on Oahu’s North Shore, June through August generally offers a better opportunity.

Families limited to school holidays can still enjoy Hawaii during July or December. The key is to select beaches that suit the season and arrange popular activities before arriving.

Choose September for a warm beach vacation, May for a comfortable mix of sightseeing and swimming, or February for whales and big winter waves. Hawaii has something worthwhile to experience in every season, but matching the month to the activities you actually want will make the trip far more rewarding.

Finnish melodic metal band Dead End Finland are set to release their sixth studio album ‘Carbon‘ on March 12th 2027 via Inverse Records. Their new single ‘Mercy of Fools‘ is out today and it’s available on all essential streaming services. Stream ‘Mercy of Fools‘ – here The band comments: “How far can we go before […]

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Bandcamp [Release date 20.11.26] In these crazy days of AI-generated slop, isn’t it gratifying to know that some things, done in their most authentic and feral form, remain without equal. A four-piece comprised of drums, guitar, bass and lungs is … Continue reading →

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Imagine meeting the love of your life on a tour featuring guillotines, giant spiders, dancing skeletons and a singer who gets executed in front of thousands of screaming fans. It sounds like the beginning of an unusually dark romantic comedy, but for Alice Cooper and Sheryl Goddard, it became a lifelong love story.

They met in 1975, when Sheryl joined the theatrical production of Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare tour. A year later, they were married. Their relationship would survive alcoholism, a painful separation and the unpredictable demands of the music business.

And in March 2026, Alice and Sheryl celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. The man who built his career on frightening audiences had spent half a century married to the same woman.

The story of how they got there is far more entertaining, and far less perfect, than a typical celebrity romance.

It Started With a Ballet Dancer and a Rock and Roll Nightmare

By 1975, Alice Cooper had established himself as one of the most outrageous performers in rock music. His concerts were elaborate horror productions, complete with elaborate costumes, theatrical violence and enough strange characters to fill a small circus.

His Welcome to My Nightmare project pushed that theatrical approach even further. The album, produced by Bob Ezrin, arrived alongside an ambitious stage production that turned the songs into a twisted musical experience.

Sheryl Goddard was a professionally trained dancer who had studied ballet in New York. She was just 18 when she auditioned for the touring production, and rock music was hardly her natural territory.

In a 1978 interview with People magazine, Sheryl recalled that she had not even known who Alice Cooper was before being invited to audition. She approached the opportunity as a professional dancing job rather than a chance to meet a famous musician.

Her assignments were hardly conventional ballet roles. Depending on the sequence, she portrayed bizarre creatures and characters, including a black widow spider and a chicken.

For a dancer accustomed to the discipline of ballet, the production offered an entirely new kind of performance. For Alice, it introduced someone who would eventually become much more important than another member of his touring cast.

Yet neither of them knew it at the time.

Their First Meetings Were Not Particularly Romantic

Celebrity love stories have a habit of making the first meeting sound magical. Alice and Sheryl gave a rather more entertaining account of theirs.

In a 1983 Phoenix New Times interview, Sheryl remembered that the two had not initially got along. Both were also involved with other people when they met.

The attraction developed gradually during the tour, away from the stage and the crowds.

According to Sheryl, they became friends through late-night television sessions. One of the films they watched together was the Japanese monster movie Godzilla vs. Rodan.

There is something wonderfully appropriate about Alice Cooper falling in love over a monster movie. He was already building a career out of theatrical horror, and apparently found time to enjoy giant creatures attacking each other after work.

Watching television together gave them a chance to spend time as two ordinary people rather than as a headline performer and a dancer employed by his production.

Over the course of the tour, their friendship became a relationship. Once the romance began, events moved surprisingly quickly.

A Marriage Proposal, an Acapulco Wedding and Two Very Different Families

Alice did not stage an elaborate public proposal in front of thousands of fans. The couple were spending an evening together when he asked Sheryl to marry him.

The accounts of their engagement contain the sort of domestic comedy that rarely makes it into a rock star biography. In the 1978 People interview, Sheryl remembered being so excited that her reaction attracted the attention of Alice’s bodyguards.

They married on March 20, 1976, in Acapulco, Mexico, overlooking the bay. The ceremony had a particularly personal feature. Both of their fathers were ministers, and both took part in officiating the wedding.

Alice was accustomed to performing elaborate ceremonies onstage, although those generally ended with somebody being electrocuted or losing their head. His actual wedding was considerably more cheerful.

The couple had known each other for little more than a year. By ordinary standards, it was a remarkably quick journey from workplace acquaintances to husband and wife.

For modern singles, the idea of meeting someone backstage on a theatrical rock tour sounds almost like a fairytale. An AI matchmaker such as Palaura is certainly less likely to introduce you to someone dressed as a giant spider, although Alice and Sheryl might argue that the spider costume worked perfectly well. Still, it might help you meet someone who turns an ordinary introduction into a love story you will be telling 50 years later. 

Marriage, however, brought responsibilities that were considerably more demanding than the excitement of a touring romance.

Rock Stardom Was Not Always Easy on Their Marriage

Alice Cooper was one of the defining theatrical performers of the 1970s, but his private life became increasingly troubled as his drinking intensified.

His alcoholism affected his health, career and marriage. By the early 1980s, the relationship was under serious strain, and the couple eventually separated.

Sheryl filed for divorce in 1983. For a time, their marriage appeared to be over.

The difficulties were substantial, and reducing them to a romantic obstacle would overlook the seriousness of addiction and its consequences for a family. Alice had to confront a problem that had already consumed years of his life.

He eventually achieved lasting sobriety, and the couple reconciled. Their divorce was never finalized.

For people interested in the destructive side of the rock lifestyle, our feature on rock musicians rebuilding their lives after addiction looks at the struggles that several famous performers faced when the partying stopped being entertaining.

Alice and Sheryl continued their marriage, but their reconciliation did not erase the difficult years. Instead, they built a more stable family life and continued working together.

Their story would eventually include three children and a professional partnership that stretched across decades.

Sheryl Never Completely Left the Alice Cooper Stage Show

One of the most interesting aspects of their relationship is that Sheryl never simply disappeared into the background as the wife of a famous musician.

She remained a dancer and choreographer, and she continued to perform in Alice’s theatrical concerts. Her involvement gave the couple a rare opportunity to combine their professional lives without abandoning their individual talents.

Alice has repeatedly spoken about enjoying her presence on tour. In a 2019 interview quoted by People magazine, he described the two of them getting ready backstage, applying makeup and laughing together before a performance.

There is an amusing contrast between the stage show and what happens behind the curtain. Audiences see Alice Cooper, the sinister character who has spent decades tormenting imaginary victims. Backstage, he is a husband getting ready for work with his wife.

Once the performance begins, both become characters in the production. Their personal relationship temporarily gives way to the demands of the show.

That arrangement has allowed Sheryl to remain involved in a production she helped shape, rather than simply accompany Alice as a spectator.

It has also meant that long tours do not automatically involve lengthy separations.

For many musicians, touring has been a persistent source of pressure on relationships. Alice and Sheryl found a way to spend much of that time together, sharing a lifestyle that would otherwise have kept them apart.

Three Children and a Family Life Away From the Stage

Alice and Sheryl have three children, Calico, Dashiell and Sonora. Their eldest daughter, Calico, was born in 1981, followed by their son Dashiell, known as Dash, in 1985 and daughter Sonora in 1992.

Calico went into entertainment herself and has performed in her father’s stage productions. Growing up around theatrical rock concerts certainly offered an unusual introduction to show business.

By the time their children were growing up, Alice had also developed a more settled private life. The frightening character audiences watched onstage was a performance, not a description of how he behaved at home.

The Cooper family became rooted in Arizona, where Alice has maintained strong personal and community ties. He has also spoken openly about his Christian faith and the importance of family in his life after addiction.

His public personality has always enjoyed shocking people, so perhaps one of the biggest surprises is how conventional some of his personal priorities became.

Rock audiences could still expect a theatrical execution at the end of a concert. His family could expect him to come home afterward.

The Marriage Advice Alice Cooper Has Given Over the Years

 

When interviewers ask Alice about the longevity of his marriage, he tends to give answers that are considerably less elaborate than his live performances.

One recurring theme is companionship. Alice and Sheryl enjoy spending time together, and he has described the importance of having her alongside him during his travels.

In a 2016 interview, he explained that being away from a physical house did not necessarily mean being away from home. His idea of home centered on the person accompanying him.

It is an especially fitting attitude for someone who has spent so much of his adult life on tour buses, in hotels and backstage at concert venues.

He has also spoken about the importance of maintaining romance in marriage rather than allowing a relationship to become entirely routine.

None of these ideas is particularly mysterious. Spending time together, enjoying shared activities and continuing to appreciate a partner are ordinary parts of a close relationship.

What makes the Cooper marriage notable is the setting in which those habits developed. They created a long shared life inside an industry famous for exhausting schedules, public attention and unstable relationships.

Alice also had to address a more unusual story in 2019, when reports suggested he and Sheryl had made a pact to die together. He publicly rejected the interpretation, explaining that he had been talking about their close companionship rather than any intention to end their lives.

It was another occasion when a dramatic Alice Cooper headline turned out to have a far more ordinary explanation.

In 2026, They Got Married All Over Again

On March 20, 2026, Alice and Sheryl reached their 50th wedding anniversary. The following day, they marked the occasion with a vow renewal at the historic Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was a substantial family celebration, attended by 220 guests, including their children and grandchildren.

One detail made the occasion especially moving. Sheryl’s father, William Goddard, who had officiated their original wedding in 1976, returned to perform the ceremony at the age of 92.

Half a century after watching his daughter marry a rock singer in Mexico, he was present to celebrate the marriage again.

Alice and Sheryl exchanged personalized vows and custom gold rings decorated with rubies and diamonds. The rings were designed with their everyday activities in mind, including Alice’s microphone work and golf.

During the celebration, Alice dipped Sheryl and kissed her as their guests applauded. It was a little theatrical, naturally, but nobody had to escape a straitjacket.

The milestone also put their romance into perspective. When Sheryl first joined the Welcome to My Nightmare production, neither could have predicted that they would still be performing together and celebrating their marriage 50 years later.

A Love Story That Has Become Part of Rock History

Alice Cooper is remembered for helping establish shock rock, creating unforgettable theatrical concerts and turning a fascination with horror into a remarkable musical career.

His relationship with Sheryl Goddard deserves a place in that history too.

She was there during the spectacular Welcome to My Nightmare years, lived through the difficult consequences of his addiction and continued to share the stage with him long after their first tour together.

They have experienced the excitement of success, the uncertainty of separation and the everyday work of raising a family. Their 50th anniversary in 2026 was a celebration of everything that happened after that first meeting in 1975.

And perhaps the funniest part of their story is that Alice Cooper, the man who made a living frightening people, found his future wife in a group of dancers hired to make his nightmare even stranger.

Of all the things that came out of that tour, the marriage turned out to have the longest run.