SIXX:A.M. To Work With Outside Producer For First Time On Next Studio Album

Scotty Mars of "The Scotty Mars Show", which airs on the Live 105 radio station in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, recently conducted an interview with SIXX:A.M. singer James Michael. You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below.

Speaking his dual role as musician and producer, James said: "I'm kind of going through a transition right now, as far as my producing relationship with SIXX:A.M. I've made the decision that I'm not gonna produce the next SIXX:A.M. record, because I just really want to bring in a new producer into this and I wanna experience it from the artist standpoint solely as opposed to having to wear both hats. We haven't decided who we're gonna use yet, but I'm very, very excited about the idea of bringing somebody else into the mix and seeing where that takes us."

Asked how his SIXX:A.M. bandmates Nikki Sixx and D.J. Ashba reacted to the idea of bringing in an outside producer for the first time, James said: "They're very supportive of that, and I think we're all excited about the idea. You know, there's gonna be some growing pains for sure, because we've been doing it this way for so long. And I think it'll be exciting, I think it'll be terrifying, but I think it'll also be very, very inspiring for us."

SIXX:A.M. will release "Vol. 2, Prayers For The Blessed" on November 18 via Eleven Seven Music. The album will be available for pre-order beginning October 14. Written and recorded at the same time as "Vol. 1, Prayers For The Damned", released earlier this year, the album acts as a companion piece to the first chapter while simultaneously elevating the band's sound in every area.

Regarding the decision to split the "Prayers" project into two separate albums, James told The Aquarian Weekly: "When we set out to make two records, it was very intentional. We didn't want this to fall into that category that a lot of albums do, where it actually sounds like you went into the studio to one record, you have a few extra songs, you figured you'd polish them up and then you have a double album. We've all fallen victims to those albums before. This was a very different beast. It was very intentional. We thought of this as one big record, but then in a lot ways, we knew that we were going to be releasing them separately, so we did treat them separately, so they would stand alone. But we put so much effort and thought and care into every single note of both records and we wrote them both at the same time, and then figured out where each song made sense, so I think 'Vol. 2' is absolutely as strong, if not stronger than 'Vol. 1'. There are some songs on there that are really career songs. So, in a way, while we're so excited about 'Vol. 1' and the response that we're getting, we're also chomping at the bit for people to sink their teeth into 'Vol. 2' as well."

In a separate interview with Lehigh Valley Music, James stated about the decision to release "Vol. 2" so soon after "Vol. 1": "We didn't want to wait too long in between because they’re definitely connected. Both volumes certainly stand alone and are very satisfying bodies of work, but when they are experienced together, another layer of SIXX:A.M. and another of the messaging will be revealed. So it was important that we didn’t release them too far apart because they are connected, but we didn't want to release them at the same time 'cause that's an awful lot of music to absorb. And as you know, SIXX:A.M. music is — it's pretty heavy and it's pretty complex and deals with very, sometimes, difficult subject matter. So we wanted people to have time to absorb the messaging and absorb the songs before we then dropped a whole other album on them. But the reason we decided to do two records is we wanted to provide a lot of new music for people. We also kind of felt like we were playing catch-up in a way. 'Cause for the last ten years, we haven't been able to tour very much at all, and so we felt like, in a way, we were making up for lost time."