CORROSION OF CONFORMITY Created 'Something Special' With 'No Cross No Crown' Album

Metal Mark of Ghost Cult recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ghost Cult: Fans, as you well know, have been waiting for [CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's new album, "No Cross No Crown"] for a while now, so everyone is excited to hear it, but how excited are you guys to release it?

Pepper: "We are beyond excited, man. Ever since we started writing the new material, we knew we had something special. Once it was done, we realized we had a monster on our hands, and it will finally be released in January. The hard part is over, as they say, and now it's up to us to deliver it live as well, and we will."

Ghost Cult: After a few listens to the record, it really sounds like you guys picked up right where 2005's "In The Arms Of God" left off. It's like no time had passed at all. Was that the intention, or did it just happen that way?

Pepper: "You nailed it, man. That was the sound we were going for, so your ears aren't fooling you. [Laughs] We used 'In The Arms Of God' as a catalyst and went from there. We know what C.O.C. fans want, and we wanted to give it to them. It's pretty cool that, after twelve years, we were able to capture that energy and sound again, but once we started, it was like the old days all over again."

Ghost Cult: You guys have obviously grown as musicians since the last time you wrote together, so did that bring up any issues, or was it a seamless writing and recording session?

Pepper: "There were definitely some challenges, but nothing that we couldn't handle. We aren't new to this. [Laughs] We know how to do things, but we just wanted to make sure we got it right. I think the biggest obstacle was that we don't live down the street from the studio anymore. We all live in different cities, so it took over a year to get it done. Studio-wise, we probably knocked it out in forty days, but getting everyone together was the hard part, [because] we wanted to be in the same room when we did this record. That was a big deal for us, and always has been. That's the best way to capture a band, in my opinion, and it really brought out the best in us, and therefore the songs as well. Fans have been wanting this for a while, like you said, so we didn't want to disappoint. We didn't want to put out a record just to say we did. We wanted to make something that lives up to the C.O.C. name, and I think we did."

Read the entire interview at Ghost Cult.

Photo credit: Dean Karr