LIFE OF AGONY Frontman: 'We're Closer Than We Ever Were'

LIFE OF AGONY frontman Keith Caputo recently spoke to NashuaTelegraph.com about the group's decision to reunite and their much-anticipated new studio album, "Broken Valley". A few excerpts from the interview follow:

On his dream of attending Juilliard to become a concert pianist:

"I had to abandon that dream because of my household environment and the people I was living with, but I didn't abandon dreaming. Everything was about forcing me into the old-school Italian way of going out into the world and finding a trade, working your life away and being miserable. I decided to totally go against the grain. I had no support, so I rebelled."

On the new album:

" 'Broken Valley' is an angst-filled record driven by sorrow, which is ironic since a lot of positive energy went into it. There are different energies for different songs on 'Broken Valley'. A song like 'Calm that Disturbs You' is like a shark attack. A song like 'Wicked Ways' is more of a candles-and-incense burning type of track. If you stop learning, you stop living, and we've learned a lot."

On the years the bandmembers spent away from each other:

"The time apart has just really accentuated things. It helped us as individuals, and as a band, musically, spiritually, intellectually and emotionally. We exist with one another in a way we never have before. We're closer than we ever were."

On how he felt about reuniting with the rest of the band:

"I was a bit nervous. You think about all the bad things, all the stuff that made you leave and detach in the first place. Fear sets in. But you can't let fear direct every footstep, otherwise you might as well stay in your house."

On what they hope to achieve with the new record:

"All we want for this band and this record is to be on top of our game and contribute something special and different to the world of music. That's it. And the rest follows. If it goes gold, great. If it goes platinum, super-great. If it sells 20,000 copies, oh well, that's cool, too.

"We've been underdogs for a long time. We got the cult-heads that'll follow us anywhere and we'll see where the rest go. We've been around the block a couple of times and our heads are not in the clouds. Trust me. None of us are looking at million-dollar houses."

LIFE OF AGONY's new album, "Broken Valley", is scheduled for release on June 14 via Epic Records. The upcoming album will mark the group's first collection of new material since "Soul Searching Sun", which was released in 1997. The band's last release was a live album and DVD, entitled "River Runs Again: Live 2003". The two-disc set was recorded during the group's sold-out reunion shows at Irving Plaza in New York City on January 3-4, 2003 and was issued through SPV Records worldwide.