ADEMA Drummer: We Are Influenced By METALLICA And PANTERA

Despite the fact that his group is regularly being called "nu-metal" by most of the music press, ADEMA drummer Kris Kohls wants to make it clear that, as far as he's concerned, the nu-metal genre itself is little more than a media invention.

"I don't even really know what [nu-metal] is," Kohls told Canada's Chart Attack. "To be honest, I don't even think it exists. There's nothing new about metal… I'm not sure who came up with that term or why it stuck so much.

"We're just a rock band," he continued. "We're influenced by metal, but the bands that influence us are METALLICA and PANTERA, and those bands aren't new. I just don't see it. Songs like 'Promises' and 'Fortunate' and stuff like that, to me, I don't see how you would call that metal. I think we're kind of growing out of that."

Kohls added that while the first album (ADEMA's self-titled debut, released in 2001) had more of a metal edge, he feels that the group's sophomore effort, "Unstable" (due on August 19 through Arista Records),is a much stronger release.

"We spent about eight months writing and recording ['Unstable'] — actually it was closer to a year for the whole thing. And now that it's done and it's about ready to come out, we're definitely very excited," Kohls said.

"It was a little different because the first one we recorded in a cabin in the mountains. We all lived together in the same cabin and we were pretty much inseparable for about two months writing that record," Kohls explained. "This one we wrote in Burbank, and we were all able to go home afterwards and… write separately as well as together. We weren't as confined, so it was a little different in that aspect."

ADEMA are heading out on the road with LINKIN PARK in a few weeks for a European tour that will take them through the fall.