SEVENDUST's MORGAN ROSE: 'This Is The Craziest Time For This Band'

In a new interview with George Dionne of KNAC.COM, SEVENDUST drummer Morgan Rose was asked what  inspires him and his bandmates to continue to make new music. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's funny 'cause we've said a hundred times, it's, like, 'Man, maybe this'll be the last [full-length album we make],' or 'maybe it'll turn into an EP world,' or 'maybe it'll be singles,' or maybe... I think the thing is we just really love writing songs. We're gonna write songs regardless.

"We all have our hands in a thousand different pots, whether it's producing, co-writing, side projects — it's constantly writing — so if we're gonna do all that stuff, we're, like, 'Well, maybe we'll do more over here, too,'" he explained.

"I made this comment maybe a year and a half ago, where I was, like, 'The band almost called it quits' or whatever, and motherfucking thing went crazy. And half the band hated me and all this. I'm, like, well, it's kind of true. I was gonna be gone. Even now, bringing it up, it's such a weird thing. Even though it's not happening and we have no plans on retiring — it just was a moment, and there was a reason — but now that that's not there anymore, still just the thought of it, I know that there's guys that'll hear it and be, like, 'This guy, he won't stop talking about it.' [Laughs] It's, like, dude, we're not going anywhere right now. We're good.

"The new music thing is just, like — who knows what's really gonna happen with it?" Morgan added. "We've had people that have come up and said, 'God, man, 15 records. Do you think anybody really wants to hear anything new?' And then this one comes out, and it actually did really well. And it's, like, we're not really a legacy band yet. So I guess we'll keep making 'em.

"I know that I see some of my favorite bands and they play new songs, and I think the same thing. I'm, like, 'Dude, you know they just wanna hear this [song], or this [track], or this other 10 [songs]. They don't really wanna hear the new one.' But occasionally, even those bands pop a new song and you're, like, 'New song's good.' So we'll keep making 'em. I don't know how many at a time we'll make, as far as a full-length or who knows what's gonna happen with that. But we're gonna keep making music for a bit."

Asked how SEVENDUST's recent spring 2026 U.S. tour with ATREYU, FIRE FROM THE GODS and AMERICAN ADRENALINE went, Morgan said: "This is the craziest time for this band. It's weird. It started with Europe. We went to Europe first. We did that in January, and we hadn't been to Europe… We had never done a proper tour of Europe in our entire career. The business and the people that we were aligned with were not good people, and there was talk that we would never go back there again. So we did a very long tour there — seven and a half weeks, seven weeks — and fell in love with it, and the people there were super receptive, and that was the start of it, where it was, like, 'Oh, damn. There's an audience here.' And that just kind of worked itself into the States, where we go to do this run, and we got done with it. I mean, first of all, looking at it, we'd be looking out in the crowd, and I'm, like, there's 10 or 15 people that are crowd surfing at a time. It's a sea of people that are coming over this barricade. And then I'm looking closer, and I'm, like, 'These are children, dude. There's some kids out here.' And when I say children, it was, like — I mean, one of the last shows, there was a kid, he had the headphones on. I'm, like, 'This dude's got shotgun headphones on.' They're nervous that his ears are gonna get damaged, but they're okay with this eight-year-old being flipped around like a bowling ball on top of a crowd of people that are beating each other up. It was a trip. And then I asked some people, I'm, like, 'What's happening?' And they're, like, 'Well, you guys went viral on social media, a few different songs.' So then John [Connolly, SEVENDUST guitarist] starts doing research, and he goes, 'Dude, 'Denial' and 'Rumble Fish' are like two of our biggest songs, period.' And I'm, like, ''Rumble Fish'? Well, that song's not a single.' And they're, like, 'It went viral.' So that's where these kids are coming from. That and the combination of this style, this genre found its way back into being relevant again. Not that it ever went away. I mean, KORN's not gone anywhere. They're still the kings. And the DEFTONES went viral too, and SYSTEM OF A DOWN. All this, quote-unquote, nu metal stuff came back around, so the tour just went bananas. And then my manager is, like, 'Well, congratulations. You sold more tickets than you've ever sold. You sold more merch than you've ever sold, and it was the most successful tour that you've ever had.' And we're, like, 'Wow.'"

Morgan added: "So we're gonna ride this wave hard. I mean, we're, like, 'Let's go back out immediately.' It's a lot of fun to have this many people coming out to see this and be able to still do it at a level that we feel is respectable. 'Cause it has to be at that level for us to be comfortable doing it. It's not gonna be... I see some of these bands and I'm, like, 'Woo, dude. I'm not gonna be doing that one. You're not gonna wheel me out there. It's not gonna happen.' So we're keeping it together."

Circling back to SEVENDUST's shows with ATREYU, FIRE FROM THE GODS and AMERICAN ADRENALINE, Rose concluded: "The tour was great, though, to answer your question. It was amazing."

SEVENDUST and THEORY OF A DEADMAN will team up for "The Dead / Seven Tour" later this year. This 36-date co-headline trek is scheduled to kick off on August 7 in Duluth, Minnesota and run through September 29, where it ends in Bozeman, Montana. Along the way, it will make stops in Fargo, North Dakota (August 11),Detroit, Michigan (August 23),Atlanta, Georgia (September 5),Corpus Christi, Texas (September 12),and Riverside, California (September 20),to name a few.

SEVENDUST is continuing to tour in support of its fifteenth studio album, "One", which arrived on May 1. The band — comprised of Lajon Witherspoon (vocals),Clint Lowery (guitar),John Connolly (guitar),Vince Hornsby (bass) and Morgan Rose (drums) — once again worked with producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette at Studio Barbarosa in Gotha, Florida. Baskette had previously helmed albums from ALTER BRIDGE and Slash, among others.