GOJIRA Drummer Says Work On New Album Is 'Going Well': 'We Are Super Proud Of It'

GOJIRA drummer Mario Duplantier has confirmed to Phyllis of the Idaho rock radio station KBear 101 that the band is continuing to work on the follow-up to 2016's "Magma" album. "It's going well," he said. "I cannot give too much details because we still have to be on the same page with all the partners, and we have to give a collective [release] date and et cetera. But I can tell you that, yeah, we are working very hard on the new stuff. Work is in progress, and we are very, very, very happy and super proud of it. We just can't wait to give you more details."

"Magma" earned GOJIRA its first-ever Grammy nominations for "Best Metal Performance" and "Best Rock Album." GOJIRA's crushing track "Silvera" received a nomination for "Best Metal Performance", while "Magma" was nominated for "Best Rock Album" at the awards.

Last August, GOJIRA frontman Joseph "Joe" Duplantier told Metal Injection that the band started to work on new music almost two years ago. "Usually we write 12 songs and record 12 songs and release 12 songs," he said. "Now it looks like we're going to write 100 songs. It's a different approach and it's fun. We have new desires and a new way of doing things. I like to think it's going to be awesome. I feel it's going to be really exciting, for us at least. I don't know what people are going to think."

In the same interview, Joseph said that GOJIRA was planning to explore some new territory on the upcoming album. "I want to go back to some of the older influences that we have," he said. "We were always not a death metal band. Before that, I was a DIRE STRAITS fan, Michael Jackson. We have that in us and some progressive stuff too. We have all these things and we need to express that somehow, mixed with our own special sauce. We're working with stuff that sometimes is a bit surprising, even to us. Sometimes it's, like, 'What is this?' I don't know, let it sleep a little bit and go back to it. After this, we're going to go back into the studio and see what's going on."

GOJIRA will support SLIPKNOT this summer on the massive "Knotfest Roadshow" North American tour. Also appearing on the bill are VOLBEAT and BEHEMOTH. Produced by Live Nation, the 29-city outing will kick off July 26 in Mountain View, California at Shoreline Amphitheater and continue through September 8 where it will conclude with a performance at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands, Texas.