HELLYEAH's TOM MAXWELL On Next Album: 'My iPhone Is Loaded With Ideas'

Rustyn Rose of Metalholic.com recently conducted an interview with HELLYEAH guitarist Tom Maxwell. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the songwriting sessions for HELYEAH's next album:

"Last night, at 3:30 in the morning, I woke up with a fucking riff in my head, so I just grabbed my iPhone and hit the voice recorder and just started coming out with these riffs. My iPhone is loaded with ideas. And I've still got stuff carried over from the last record on there too, but…

"We're gonna finish up this tour, go to New Zealand, Australia and Japan, then take a small break and then me and Vinnie [Paul Abbott, drums] will get together in Dallas and start hashing out the foundation of the next record."

On how the dynamic in HELLYEAH has changed with the addition of bassist Kyle Sanders and guitarist Christian Brady:

"It's fucking awesome, man. I've got a great bass player in Kyle, and I cannot wait for him to get on this record. Christian… I think Christian is gonna… We're gonna bring him in to participate on the record. To what extent, I don't know yet; I haven't figured out his songwriting yet. You know what I mean?! But everybody will be involved in one way, shape or form."

On recording acoustic versions of songs from the "Blood For Blood" album:

"We actually went in and did three acoustic songs. We did 'Blood For Blood', 'Say When' and 'Moth', and they turned out great. We'll probably package that with the next record, maybe."

On HELLYEAH playing the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival for the first time this summer:

"I'm happy about it, 'cause it's [in support of] this record ['Blood For Blood'], and it wasn't a record that… Like, the last two albums I didn't think really represented the band the way it should have. You know what I mean?! I think we were way off track, to be honest. I think 'Blood For Blood' is literally kind of like our first album, almost, 'cause it's what me and Chad [Gray, vocals] initially envisioned this band being from the very beginning. We didn't wanna be some fucking hillbilly-anthem, party-rock band, and it kind of turned into that, with the second record especially. But, you know, there was a lot of alcohol involved and shit like that. Sometimes it takes your career to find the right pieces that work. And once we parted ways with Bobby [bassist Bob 'Zilla' Kahaha] and [guitarist] Greg [Tribbett], the responsibility of writing fell on my shoulders. And I was, like, 'Okay. I don't have anybody to fuck up my game now. I'm gonna do what I wanna fucking do and what the band should have been from the very beginning.' And 'Blood For Blood' came out of it, man."

"'Blood For Blood' is me undiluted. There's nobody else throwing in their fucking ideas. It's just… Let me do my fucking thing musically. Just me and Vinnie wrote it, and then Chad came in and put the icing on the cake, and that's exactly what it was, man. It wasn't any kind of… In the past, there was always songs where I was just, like, 'I don't know about this,' you know what I mean?! But I just went with it. And I didn't want that; I wanted every song to be fucking badass. And it's kind of, like… Yeah, we found our recipe, I would say, for 'Blood For Blood', and we're gonna continue that going forward."