POWERMAN 5000 Frontman Doesn't Look At Pandemic-Era Downtime As A Loss: It Was Just 'Different'

In a new interview with The Underground Australia, POWERMAN 5000 frontman Spider One reflected on the release of the band's latest album, "The Noble Rot", which came out at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in August 2020 via Cleopatra Records. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think that we had finished [the LP] before then, and we made the first video before the pandemic. So we were just gearing up for a normal situation, that we were gonna hit the road. I think we had a couple of tours booked to promote the record. And then everything stopped, and we figured, 'Oh, well,' like everybody else, 'Oh, whatever. We'll just postpone the tour for a couple of weeks and then we'll be back at it.' And then a couple of weeks turned into a couple of years. It was a very weird way to release a record, 'cause the normal way is you get out there on the road and you get feedback from fans and you get to play the songs. And that never really happened. But the record, stream-wise, was more successful than the one before it. So I think [the pandemic] allowed people to stay at home and maybe listen to more music and discover more things. So I don't look at it as a loss or anything like that. It was just a different scenario. Fortunately now we get to play some of those songs. And people know them more, so it all worked out."

Spider One previously discussed how he spent the downtime during the pandemic in an interview last month with Australia's Metal-Roos. At the time, he said: "Like everybody else, we were stuck home and didn't get to play for almost two years, or about two years. So it was strange. But it's interesting. I don't know. There used to be a time when there were these things called album cycles — you put an album out; you tour on that album for a year or whatever; and you release the singles. And there was sort of this standard way you did business. I feel like those days, at least for us, are over. I'll find Spotify activity will go up when we're doing nothing sometimes, or it'll go down when a new record [has come out]. There seems to be no real logic to the way things function anymore. So the inactivity didn't really hurt us, I don't think, in any way. Maybe it even helped us a bit. There were a lot of bands that were trying to do stuff and maybe went out a bit too early and their tours didn't do well. We really waited it out until we felt like people were comfortable with going out again. And ever since, everything's been just super successful. So it worked out fine. But, yeah, the record was sort of… I think everybody kind of feels like they had a lot album in those couple of years."

Regarding whether there are any plans for POWERMAN 5000 to work on new music, Spider One said: "Yeah. We're in the middle of it now. I've got a bunch of songs written and sort of demoed out, I suppose you'd say. So the goal is to have that done quickly. That'll be priority once we get back from [our tour of] Australia [in January]. 'Cause we don't go back on the road until March. So probably in that window of February, [we'll] try to maybe get everything mixed and finished to have it released some time in 2023."

In May 2020, POWERMAN 5000 released its reimagining of the classic '80s new wave smash "We Got The Beat". "We Got The Beat" was originally made available in 1981 as part of THE GO-GO'S' multi-platinum debut album "Beauty And The Beat".

"Tonight The Stars Revolt!", POWERMAN 5000's second album, was released on July 20, 1999 by DreamWorks Records. It has sold over one million copies and achieved platinum status on the back of such hits as "Nobody's Real" and "When Worlds Collide". With cyberpunk imagery, catchy riffs, funky beats and rap rock vocals, POWERMAN 5000 bridged the gap between nu metal and industrial metal and packaged it up in a retro-science fiction B-movie aesthetic that separated them visually and musically from their peers.