ELIAS SORIANO On Upcoming NONPOINT Album: 'The Overall Vibe Of The Record Is Very, Very Heavy'

In a new interview with Super Cool Radio, NONPOINT frontman Elias Soriano spoke about the musical direction of the band's upcoming full-length album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "The overall vibe of the record is very, very heavy, very, very new feeling, especially with the addition of Jason [Zeilstra, guitar], addition of some of the textures and layers that we're playing with sonically just in the general mix of our music, keys and strings and stuff that we played with on our [2018] 'X' record that we fooled around with a little bit during the 'Heartless' [2023] and 'Ruthless' [2021] era. So, we're really gonna bring all those in the fold. But I think I took steps way, way back and really started to pay attention to what people were asking of me of the collabs that I was doing with them and having that epiphany of, 'Hey, maybe this is what people wanna see me do more on my record. So let me lean in that direction' and go really back to basics and go back to a lot of my cadence play, a lot of my lyric play, a lot of metaphors and double and triple entendres and things that make people hopefully want to re-listen and dig in and find a meaning in there somewhere."

He added: "It's all fun and games and great in the pit, and I love to excite people with trigger words, but at the end of the day, I want them to read further and have their own epiphanies."

Elias also talked about the NONPOINT songwriting process, explaining: "Well, from what the guys usually send, there's a song in there within the song. Sometimes it's just there. When it comes to what I see and what I translate into a song and lyrics and meaning, [it] usually comes from how the music paints itself in the room mood-wise — [how] aggressive [it is], how much of a rollercoaster it is. If it's more linear, then that's where I have to be the rollercoaster. If I can't find something that's more, maybe it rests on me to do that. So I like to allow the players and the other guys in the band to play and write stuff that they like themselves… That way they spend all the time, beat their heads against the wall, rewrite the riff a dozen times, and then finally get to this point. And then sometimes what they feel like might be a verse, may feel like a chorus to me, and I write a vocal line over top of it that, [which] now has them flipping their thinking on what they wrote because they expected it to be a chorus. There's this dance that comes with, 'Hey, write whatever you wanna write. But at the end of the day, it's my turn next to then be inspired by it enough to then lay something down that feels even exciting for me to wanna present.' And sometimes in its first incarnation, it doesn't always present itself that way. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it's just, like, 'Yeah, that's a verse. Yeah, that's a chorus.' It's really letting the current kind of take things where they're gonna go, and then me just steer to the most beautiful shore I can find."

Soriano also revealed that NONPOINT's upcoming album will include "a couple" of collaborations, including one with SUMO CYCO frontwoman Skye Sweetnam.

Earlier this month, Elias told Rev. Tom Brice of Sportzwire Radio about his expectations for NONPOINT's upcoming full-length album: "I think people are gonna have fun with it. It's different than what's on the radio. It's different than what people are dropping right now. It's not what anybody else is doing. That's the best way I can describe it. It's NONPOINT. It's NONPOINT and it's only NONPOINT."

Soriano also talked about how he feels about the supposed nu metal resurgence in recent years, partly thanks to a whole new wave of exciting revivalists. He said: "I think people remember how fun it was back then. The music right now leans — it's decorating a time that's kind of sad. There's a lot of struggle and a lot of money problems in the world and war problems in the world, and mental health because of post-pandemic generation, and that is what paints new inspiration. So music, I think people are starting to remember, is for getting away from all that. So when you go to the playlist to find something, a lot of it doesn't inspire you to get creative, to get out of your funk, all that stuff. And sometimes you just wanna do it all for the nookie, you know what I'm saying? Gimme something to break. Put that fucking finger up your ass. That kind of whole time of music in the early 2000s was a spectrum of power and excess. I think fans and everybody, we all miss that. So, we definitely are trying to bring that back to this new music."

Elias added: "I think people are gonna hear our new record and they're gonna have fun. I really feel like they're gonna have fun again, in the way that we intend it to be, I feel, which is empowering, which is retrospective, which is painted with a little bit of self-awareness, a little self-growth and then some initiative and drive and motivation peppered throughout."

Last September, NONPOINT drummer Robb Rivera told Thunder Underground that he and his bandmates had "16 [or] 17 songs" ready for their upcoming LP. "We've got quite a few, and a lot in the can that we haven't gotten to yet," he explained. "We've taken our time with it. It's been two years we've been writing this thing, maybe even more. We just got a bunch of ideas. And next year it's gonna come out."

Asked if NONPOINT's next release would be a full-length album or if it will be another EP, as was the case with 2021's "Ruthless" and 2023's "Heartless", Robb said: "Full album this time. At least that's the plan. Right now I'm looking at maybe 10 songs, which is, that's a full album these days, I guess. The EP idea was a great experiment. We just wanted to try things out. It worked. Some people liked it, some people didn't. Me, I personally just like doing the singles. I just think you can focus on the one song. But I think we're so happy with this new music that we wanna put out 10 [songs]."

After the interviewer noted that NONPOINT used to release albums more frequently, Robb concurred. "Yeah, we were actually just talking about that," he said. "Every two years we had an album out. [It was a cycle of] record, tour, write, record, tour, write. It became too much. We never really took a breather. We did 10 albums that way. And so we took our time — well, we had to take our time with 'Ruthless' because of the pandemic. We were gonna release everything in 2020, and everything shut down. The EP was already recorded. We recorded in February [of 2020], and then the pandemic happened. So we shut down all plans. We had actually gone dark online. We were not gonna say nothing for a while. And then, so then when we decided to do [new versions of] 'Alive And Kicking' and 'Frontlines', quarantine version, just to be visible and stuff. And then we started putting merch, we did the masks and all this other stuff.

"But a full album, I think it's time," he added. "Since 2018 — it's eight years without a full album. But it's not like we haven't had new music. We put out two EPs, we put out [the 2024 single] 'Underdog', so we put out 11 songs, which is really, if you look at it, it's a full album. It's just done in parts."

As previously reported, NONPOINT will headline "The Outta Control Tour" this spring, with support from SOIL and SUMO CYCO. The U.S. trek will kick off on April 25 in Tampa, Florida and wrap up on May 14 in Chicago, Illinois.

NONPOINT is:

Elias Soriano (Lead Vocals)
Robb Rivera (Drums)
Rasheed Thomas (Guitar, Backing Vocals)
Adam Woloszyn (Bass)
Jason Zeilstra (Lead Guitar)