SEVENDUST's JOHN CONNOLLY: 'It Feels Like The World Has Lost Its Mind A Little Bit'

SEVENDUST guitarist John Connolly was recently interviewed by Tyler and Mo of Z97.5's "Morning Mayhem" radio show. You can now listen to the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the musical direction of SEVENDUST's upcoming album, "All I See Is War":

John: "People ask every time we make a record: 'What kind of a record is it gonna be? Is it the heaviest thing you've ever done?' and all that stuff. And I don't think trying to do the 'heavy' thing was the goal. I mean, we're a heavy band, for sure, but there's something about the way that Lajon [Witherspoon, vocals] approaches SEVENDUST, from his perspective, that kind of gives us keys to a little bit of a different kingdom. We don't get pigeonholed as just this heavy band with a guy who screams or can't sing or whatever. So we tend to try to take advantage of what he does well. And a lot of those things are those songs that are gonna be like 'Not Original' — stuff that may not be the heaviest thing in the world. We've always been that band that's always wanted to experiment. We've done 'Angel's Son', and we did an entire acoustic record — we did 'Time Travelers & Bonfires'. So that's kind of one of those elements I think about our band that I think a lot of people enjoy, and I love incorporating all of those elements into the mix. So there's plenty of heavy on this record, but there's plenty of melodic on this record too."

On the "All I See Is War" album title:

John: "I think it's just everything. A lot of people thought it was more of a political thing, like, 'Here they go. They finally flipped. They're RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE now.' And that's totally not us at all. With all due respect to RAGE — I mean, I get it; that's kind of their… That's the whole idea; that's their platform. At the time we were doing this, you were just coming out of a vicious election cycle; you had half of the country not listening to the other half of the country… You go on social media and people are just… they're so apt to wanna just fry somebody before they actually sit down and listen to someone else's opinion or state of mind. We all walk through life in a different way and a different shape and form, and I think the way we have society and a lot of things set up, it affects people differently. So I think it's important for us just to listen. Everyone wants to go straight to throwing hands. 'Let's not have a discussion; let's just get into a fight.' And I think we can get away from that, but right now, at the moment, it just feels that way. It would be nice if we could get back to the conversation. It's just depressing. I look at my news feed on Facebook, and I'm, like, 'C'mon! You guys have been friends for 20 years and you're unfriending each other over something stupid.' I'm, like, 'Really?' So that's kind of what the take on it was for us. It wasn't really a straight-up political thing. It was just kind of, like, 'Wow!' It feels like the world has kind of lost their mind a little bit. We've all just kind of come unhinged for one reason or another. It's just, like, 'Wow!' The state of the world that we're in right now is… it's different. [Laughs] It's very different, for sure."

"All I See Is War" will be released on May 11. The follow-up to 2015's "Kill The Flaw" was recorded at Studio Barbarosa in Gotha, Florida with producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette, who has previously worked with ALTER BRIDGE and SLASH, among others.

SEVENDUST's new disc will be the group's first for Rise Records, the Oregon-based metal and hard rock label which was purchased by BMG in 2015.