BLACK STONE CHERRY's Follow-Up To 'Celebrate' EP Is 'Already Done': 'It's Just Gotta Be Mixed'

In a new interview with Germany's Rock Antenne, singer/guitarist Chris Robertson and guitarist Ben Wells of Kentucky rockers BLACK STONE CHERRY spoke about the band's plans for the follow-up to its latest EP, "Celebrate", which was released digitally this past March via Mascot Records. Ben said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "The second EP is already done, and it's just gotta be mixed. Chris and our engineer Jordan [Westfall] will mix it pretty soon, I guess — soon-ish. That's already done, but we're already coming up with new riffs at soundcheck and putting them on phones. And it just kind of never... There are times you hit a lull and you're, like, 'Okay,' you're hitting a dry spell, so to speak. But then sometimes you just keep churning them out, and ideas and songtitles and riffs and drum patterns."

Regarding the musical direction of the new BLACK STONE CHERRY material, Ben said: "I don't think we've ever tried to reinvent ourselves. We've always tried to stay at the core of what we do. And we might branch off and have some different things, but we always just try to make it genuinely us, whether it's something totally different or not. If we believe in it, then it's gonna come out sounding like it's supposed to."

Asked why BLACK STONE CHERRY opted to release two consecutive EPs as opposed to combining the material on one full-length effort, Chris said: "The initial thought was just — the world's fast as hell now, man. You put out an album, and two months after the album comes out, people are asking, 'When's your new music coming?' And you're, like, 'The damn album came out two months ago, man.' But the reality of it is after you go in the studio and you decide to do an EP of your own music, you take six songs or seven songs, and it's just a little different. I don't know. I feel like it's all more concise. It's all more to the point. There's no questions on which song should be where. It's kind of like cutting the fat and then putting it out in two pieces almost. So for us, man, it was a thing to where, let's try something different because the world has changed over the last 20 years in how we ingest the arts. We ingest and digest it so fast that if we can put out a piece of music more frequently than every… 'Cause, dude, when you do an album cycle, you gotta go tour for 18 months essentially, or you're gonna tour a year and a half or so off of a record, maybe two years if it does great, and then you've gotta have time to write and record the next album, and it's just a very long process. And for a band like us that has made our career being an on-the-road band, it just makes way more sense, in our opinion, to break our releases up into smaller sections that come together."

"Celebrate" consisted of six original tracks and a cover of SIMPLE MINDS' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" featuring Tyler Connolly (THEORY OF A DEADMAN).

The EP was produced by BLACK STONE CHERRY and recorded at High Street Studios in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

BLACK STONE CHERRY put out its latest album and eighth overall, "Screamin' At The Sky", in 2023.

Last year, the Kentucky rockers dropped "This Is Black Stone Cherry's RSD Album. The Band Really Likes It" for Record Store Day.