LAST IN LINE Begins Recording Third Album

LAST IN LINE has entered Steakhouse studio in North Hollywood, California to begin recording its third album. The follow-up to last year's "II" is tentatively due before the end of the year via an as-yet-undisclosed record label.

Speaking to Heavy New York at last weekend's NAMM show in Anaheim, California, frontman Andrew Freeman stated about the LAST IN LINE songwriting process: "It's very organic now. We're not really trying to be anything but who we are. That being said, I do stay in the parameters of what I think our audience is. But I don't think we really know what our audience is. 'Cause we have the [BLACK] SABBATH connection, we have the RAINBOW connection, [and] we have the [DEF] LEPPARD connection. And a lot of our audience comes from the LEPPARD audience, and the DIO audience as well, but there's a whole new audience that's coming.

"I'm trying to keep it where I'm not writing about chicks and cars, like a typical '80s record would be," he explained. "I try to keep it thought-provoking. It's not very fantasy-oriented, lyric-wise. It's more what's going on today — more of a street perspective, like a real-person perspective; not rainbows and unicorns and dragons."

Formed in 2012 by drummer Vinny Appice, bassist Jimmy Bain and guitarist Vivian Campbell — Ronnie James Dio's co-conspirators and co-writers on the "Holy Diver", "Last In Line" and "Sacred Heart" albums — LAST IN LINE's initial intent was to celebrate Ronnie James Dio's early work by reuniting the members of the original DIO lineup. After playing shows that featured a setlist composed exclusively of material from the first three DIO albums, the band decided to move forward and create new music in a similar vein.

LAST IN LINE's debut album, "Heavy Crown", was released in February 2016, landing at No. 1 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. Initially, the release had been preceded by tragedy when Bain unexpectedly passed away at the age of 68 on January 23, 2016. LAST IN LINE, honoring what they knew would be Bain's wish to keep the band moving, brought in Phil Soussan and committed to sustained touring in support of the album before beginning work on the follow-up release, the aforementioned "II".

Campbell revealed in a recent interview with the "Pat's Soundbytes Unplugged" podcast that LAST IN LINE is seeking a new record label home after issuing two albums through Italy's Frontiers Music Srl.