LIFE OF AGONY Singer: Making New Album Was 'A Joy'

LIFE OF AGONY recently spoke to ChartAttack.com about the group's brand-new album, "Broken Valley", out now on Epic Records. A couple of excerpts from the interview follow:

On how the deal with Epic Records came together:

Keith Caputo (vocals): "I bought tickets to a VELVET REVOLVER concert for Joey [Z, guitar] and I. We met Mark Newman there, who we'd known for 20 years. He played in SHEER TERROR and he's worked at Epic for 13, 14 years and I didn't know that. Mark heard that we had a demo going around and he asked Joey to send him one and he did. We really didn't have any expectations. You know, we were just going about our business. 'Oh, OK, if someone from Epic wants something, OK, whatever.'

"It was the next morning too. He said, 'I want one on my desk tomorrow morning.' So we messengered one over. We got it done, kind of on our own, in a way. We got ourselves signed."

On how the band's communication and songwriting is different from how it was in the past:

Joey Z: "It's huge, the difference. We've got original members back. The 'Ugly' album was the last time we had this lineup. There's a huge difference with the level of communication and we've grown as players. And we've matured a bunch. We know how to listen to each other instead of not listen to each other [laughs]."

Alan Robert (bass): "[We] collaborate a lot more than we used to in the past. Keith would actually come in with full songs of lyrics, pretty much. And now we kind of go line to line. And even musically everyone is more part of it now. Everyone adds input. Even if it's one person bringing in the song, everyone has little tweaks to make it LOA. I think we work great under pressure. We didn't have a great deal of time to do this record, and I think we all stepped up. And in fact, a lot of the best material came at the end."

Keith Caputo: "We just made ourselves very open and very available. The band is really interested in peaking at a potential we've never hit before. And we've definitely done it for this record, and I know when we do the next record, we're going to raise the bar even more. Greg [Fidelman, producer; SLIPKNOT, JET, AUDIOSLAVE] laid down a confident foundation for us to work off. He really helped us tap into places we hadn't gone before, and it was much easier to blossom. It was a great ride, man, watching it and listening to it all to come together, from recording day one, drums, all the way through the mastering session with Ted Jensen. It was just an excellent ride of listening to this record grow musically. It was definitely another joy."