ROCKENFIELD: New QUEENSRŸCHE Album Will Sound Like What People Would Expect Band To Be

Avinash Mittur of Metal Assault conducted an interview with the Todd La Torre-fronted version of QUEENSRŸCHE before the band's November 24 concert at the House Of Blues in West Hollywood, California. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: The band released a teaser for the new record a little over a week ago. Are there any plans to release a follow-up to the teaser with more new material being featured?

Scott Rockenfield (drums): Well, we were pretty bold in putting that out in the first place, but listen, the plan is that came out because we're going into the studio and we start recording next week. The record is completely written, and we're going to head in and start tracking. Our plan is to have it out sometime at the end of the first quarter of next year, hopefully spring. That's the whole gist of why we put that teaser out. Are there going to be any more teasers? I don't know. You never know!

Metal Assault: You're working with [producer/engineer] Jimbo Barton again on the new album. It's been eighteen years since the QUEENSRŸCHE last album he worked on, "Promised Land". What's it like working with him after so many years?

Scott: Good research; that's awesome! You know, it is eighteen years, isn't it? 1994 was when we did that record, so yeah, it's been eighteen years. Listen, it's a great thing — we're really excited about it, he's really excited about it. We've wanted to work with him for a while, but for whatever reason, we just hadn't gone there yet. This is a great time for us to do that, though. We all discussed who we wanted to do the record with, and he was one of the first names that came up. It was easy for us to pick up the phone and call him. It was like our relationship picked up right where it left off, so it's gonna be a lot of fun. He's a very creative guy that did some great records with us in the past. I think that's one of the most important things when it comes to why we want to work with him.

Metal Assault: About the new album: are we going to see a return to the progressive metal sound QUEENSRŸCHE had in the '80s? And what kind of modern elements, if any, are we going to see in the new material?

Scott: What we're trying to do, and what has been really interesting since Todd has jumped into the band, we're trying to revisit the old QUEENSRŸCHE catalog — stuff off of the EP and "The Warning". That's always been a part of what we are, so yeah, definitely! I think in my opinion, we're really revisiting that vibe of why that music was special back then for us. There will be a modern flair to it, though, just because we're in the modern age. The fun thing about Jimbo being a part of it is that he can help tie together the two sides. He does come from our past and some of the great records and some of the great sounds that we're known for, but he's also living in the modern age and doing some interesting things as well. I think it's going to be a really great QUEENSRŸCHE record. People are going to go, "Wow, that's QUEENSRŸCHE! That sounds just like what we've known them to be, and what we would expect them to now be." That's what I think peple will get out of it.

Metal Assault: Parker [Lundgren], I think you've been tracking some guitars lately?

Parker: Yeah, we're all kind of working on stuff every day. The songs are just about done; we've got just about enough material for the record and right now it's more like shooting ideas around. Scott will write a song, and it'll be made up of samples for the most part. He'll send it to Todd, he'll say, "Wow, that sounds great. I'm gonna sing on it right away," and then Michael [Wilton, guitar], Ed [Jackson, bass] and I will get it and track guitar ideas and send stuff back and forth. There's been a lot of that, but they're still just demos. I'm excited to see what the songs turn out like once we head into the studio and we have all this nice gear and sounds and a great console and everything. Yeah, we're just plugging away every day.

Metal Assault: You've been primarily playing rhythm guitar and helping Michael with harmonies live, but are we going to be hearing any soloing from you on the new record?

Parker: Yeah! There are already a couple of double solos that Michael and I have written and it's kind of cool to bring that back a bit more. We've been doing some cool harmonized dual solos. We're trying to avoid just shredding gibberish, we're really thinking out the solos and making them melodic. That's something that the band's done a lot in the past.

Scott: One thing about this record, is that it's completely written and performed by us five in QUEENSRŸCHE, which for whatever it's worth, was not the case as of the last few records that we made. We're really excited. That was one of the things that we really needed to work on and change and that we weren't really happy with. The whole record is us doing our thing, and you're going to get the energy that comes out of that. It's been a lot of fun because we've been tossing some great ideas around. The results will be when it's finally done and you can listen to it, but we're really excited about it and I think everyone else is gonna have a good time once they hear it.

Read the entire interview from Metal Assault.