STONE SOUR's JOSH RAND Has Seven Songs Demoed For Next Album

STONE SOUR guitarist Josh Rand has seven songs demoed so far for the band's follow-up to 2017's "Hydrograd" album, but he says there are no concrete plans for him and his bandmates to regroup and work on new material. "We just kind of take one thing at a time," he explained to Billboard. "[Singer] Corey [Taylor] has a full year still left of touring with SLIPKNOT, and he's planning to work on his solo record. So there's no actual timetable for us. That's the way it always is."

Beginning January, Rand will be posting demo or alternate versions of STONE SOUR's songs going back to the band's inception more than 25 years ago. "I'm pretty excited about that," he said. "I think it's going to be really cool, and it'll give an insight into how we work as a band. It's an interesting thing to hear stuff in its raw form and not polished like you hear in a finished record. There's a rawness to it that's cool."

Also planned for 2020 is a special summer release that Rand describes as "a mixture of everything — some live stuff, some demo stuff, some new material that has not been heard. It'll be really cool, and we're all really excited about it, but I can't say too much yet," he explained.

Rand is currently promoting STONE SOUR's first official live album, "Hello, You Bastards: Live In Reno", which arrived on December 13 on CD, digital, and as a numbered 180-gram double vinyl package. The latter is limited to 2500 copies and includes a poster, backstage pass, guitar pick, autographed setlist and more.

Corey told Australia's Heavy magazine in 2018 that he and his STONE SOUR bandmates started writing new music "pretty much as soon as we got on the road" in support of "Hydrograd". "We just can't be stopped; we're just gluttons for punishment at this point," he said. "But the cool thing is that knowing that we've got all this great material, we can kind of enjoy the rest as much as we can because we know that when it's time to really start kind of ramping up the demo machine, we're gonna have all this cool stuff to listen to. There's no pressure for us to just run right in."

Taylor, who stepped away from STONE SOUR in 2019 to focus on SLIPKNOT, said that the former band's absence from the touring circuit "will allow the audience to miss [STONE SOUR], which is the best thing in the world you can have — that built-in need for a band to come back. Just when you think you can't wait any longer, here comes this band and they're, like, 'Oh, goddamn, they're so good right now.' So we're pretty stoked, man. We're definitely looking forward to trying to see if we can top 'Hydrograd'."