STONE SOUR Didn't Want To Shortchange Fans With 'Hydrograd' Album

PitCam TV conducted an interview with STONE SOUR bassist Johny Chow and drummer Roy Mayorga prior to the band's November 20 concert at Columbiahalle in Berlin, Germany. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On STONE SOUR's new album, "Hydrograd", having more of a "rock and roll" feel than some of the band's previous efforts:

Roy: "Yeah, it definitely has more of that — definitely little bit of a departure. But, yeah, it has definitely more of a hard rock edge to it. It wasn't really a conscious effort — it just kind of came out that way."

Johny: "Everybody on the album wrote, so everybody had input. And, like Roy said, it just kind of came out that. It was not preconceived — there was no plan of, 'We're gonna make a rock and roll album.'"

Roy: "We just basically set out to write the best songs we can write and just hope for the best."

On "Hydrograd" containing 15 songs:

Roy: "Honestly, we wrote, like… What did we write? 20-something songs — 22, 23… We had so many songs… We were gonna put out a lot less, but then [we were, like], 'Look, we have all these songs. We like all of these songs. So why not just put 'em all out?' And we're probably not gonna put out another record for a while, so… Yeah, why not?"

Johny: "It kind of goes with the thought… As you know, Corey [Taylor, STONE SOUR singer] also does SLIPKNOT, so there's three, four years off at a time, and our fans are waiting all that time; you don't wanna shortchange 'em with 10 songs. And this is a true album. We felt like all the songs... [there are] a lot of peaks and valleys; it takes you on a ride. And I think we kind of wound up with the amount of songs, because it just felt right."

Roy: "We didn't wanna just shelf a couple of songs 'cause... for that reason. We loved all the songs we had, so it was a good problem to have."

Johny: "And the writing process was so easy and so awesome that we don't wanna be, like, 'Okay, cool. We'll save these for later.' Screw that. Let's do it all now, and then if we're writing so well together, we'll be able to write so well together again, so to say."

STONE SOUR recently released a 360-degree performance video of the song "Taipei Person/Allah Tea", filmed live on June 29 at The Troubadour in Hollywood, California. The track is taken from "Hydrograd", which was released on June 30 via Roadrunner Records. The disc was recorded at Sphere Studios in North Hollywood, California with producer Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX and STEEL PANTHER.