UGLY KID JOE Is Going 'Back To Metal' On Upcoming Album: 'All Of These Songs Reflect A Heavier Rock/Metal Sound'

In a new interview with The Joel Martin Mastery Podcast, UGLY KID JOE guitarist and producer Dave Fortman spoke about the band's recently completed follow-up to the "Rad Wings Of Destiny" album, which came out in October 2022. Dave said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think we're… I forget. Damn, are we dropping 12 or 10 [tracks]? It's like 10 or 12 songs. I can't remember. There's different plans on how to get it released. I think it's in two chunks. I don't know if I'm supposed to give that information away. I don't know if any of this is positively true. I'm not really that much in that department. But I know that if you look at it as a whole, there's, like, 12 songs, and I think we're trying to release them all. And any other version of that, at least 10 of them coming out. But I think 12, if I remember correctly. I actually haven't had this conversation in months, so I don't remember a whole lot. It's all pretty much to be determined."

Regarding how he and his UGLY KID JOE bandmates went about making the new LP, Dave said: "We really went through, this time, and just worked it the right way. It's the first time that I've ever really applied my own production abilities all the way, because in the past, for me at least... Well, on 'Rad Wings', I wanted to let Mark [Dodson, who was behind the desk for the band's debut album, 'America's Least Wanted'] produce that one, because we love Mark, and it's a nostalgic thing, and the album's great. And that's what we did. And it was a good time. I just got to be an artist and have fun and drink and play guitar. I love that. And then in the previous records too, they're kind of, like, we just fucking go in there and knock it out. Sure, I'm producing like I always do, but not to the extent of this record, where I went in early, early on and started doing the psychological kind of producing, which is confidence building, which I wanted songs out of [UGLY KID JOE guitarist] Klaus [Eichstadt] this time around. So early on, I start working on him subconsciously, so he doesn't know I'm trying to get songs out of him. And it worked. He has, I think, a few of the best songs he's ever fucking written on this album. And I really want that. That's exactly where this band came from. He started the whole fucking thing, writing a hit, and the majority — almost everything on 'America's Least Wanted' is all Klaus. So I got that. And then the other one was to start early on with me and Whit [UGLY KID JOE vocalist Whitfield Crane] co-writing and just seeing what we could do. And still — I think there's three of mine that are written just by me, where it's always that kind of thing. Me and Klaus usually have songs. But me and Whit, I think, have some of the most magical stuff on the record because we did this one thing. We went and did not let songs live that weren't all the way mind-blowing. And so we have one of the songs, which I love, it's really, really great, and it's coming out. I won't give away any titles. I don't know how these guys are going about stuff, so I'll just leave it all out. But there's one tune that I think it went through, and we laughed about this so hard because you can go look on Pro Tools and I don't know how many fucking versions of this thing we did. It's just basically sort of the saying, like Max Martin, the great songwriter, said, 'You gotta kill your babies, man. You gotta be willing to do it.' However much you think it's fucking great, if you don't feel it 100% blowing you away, just keep working at it, and keep doing new parts, and keep going, and going and going. And we did that exact process to almost — six or seven of these songs are that kind of process. And some of those, in my opinion, are... My favorite song on the whole fucking record is that. And also we are in the peak ever in Whit's writing. This is his fucking moment, dude. I'm telling you, he has some stuff, or riffs that he sang out of his mouth that I was able to translate and kind of mold everything into musically being a tune. But there's also these vocal lines and melodies that he would keep hashing over, and some metaphors and some of the poetry that are written into these things, in my personal opinion only, it's some of the best shit this band's ever done. And one song — well, not just that one. There are a number of songs that were done like that. My favorite song on the record, I consider it to be the fucking magnum opus of this damn record, is Whit and his riffs, my chord progression in the chorus, but his riffs and his melody lines everywhere. Nothing from me lyrically on it. This is all him and just being fucking genius this time around in his writing ability. And we just sat and did it right in my other place when I was living in Cape Coral, right in my bedroom. He'd just lay there on the bed and knock shit out all day. And it was an incredible process. It really was. We've never done something like that, so fruitful to produce that many things out of us together, and so it was a fascinating process. And then we also had Klaus come down and get a bunch of his stuff knocked out. He has his own personal greatest song he's ever written, in my opinion, that's gonna be out, too. It's incredibly rad."

Elaborating on how the new UGLY KID JOE album compares to the band's previous efforts and what he and his bandmates did differently this time around, Dave said: "Every band, when you have a new album, most people say, 'It's the best shit we've ever done.' And then they say, 'But this time, this is the real deal. No, I mean it this time. Not the last one, but this one.' But this is the best thing we've ever done. Even though I think I said it last time. It's incredible. I love it. I know the guys are really proud of it. It sounds amazing. There's more production on this than anything we've ever done. There's more production things happening, arrangement-wise, part-wise, overdub-wise, sounds going on and things like that, and elements of things we've never had on an UGLY KID JOE record ever that were added by yours truly. In the second round of mixing, I went and did an entirely different production sweep through it and remixed everything. 'Cause I got sober and I realized a lot. I was mixing, GODSMACK's 'Live At Mohegan Sun', the new live record, at the end of 2024, and I started to realize, 'Hmm, maybe I should go back and listen to the UKJ one again.' And certainly it began as a sonic journey just for me to try to get a better-sounding mix. And then all of a sudden that turned into, 'Wow, look, I could add all this.' And I started getting better at learning to back things up with pads and whatever that you can't really hear, but they just add width and size to a mix. And then I started to add sounds and production stuff, and so it turned into an entirely different fucking record after I did that. And that took me months to do. So, yeah, I put in a lot of work. I hope the fans like it. We fucking love it. And I think it's certainly the most unique piece of work."

On the topic of the musical direction of the new UGLY KID JOE album, Dave said: "It's back to metal. This is straight up... 'Rad Wings Of Destiny' was us writing stuff with no palm mutes in it, and I brought that up to Klaus on the tour that we had done. I don't know what tour it was… And I was, like, 'Man.' I'm, like, 'Damn, 'Rad Wings Of Destiny' doesn't have a single song…' I think it's just the break in 'Kill The Pain' that has a palm mute… And I'm playing soundcheck. I'm, like, every fucking song, even 'Milkman's Son' has [a palm mute]. All of our songs. I'm, like, 'That's the history of this fucking band.' I'm, like, 'What were we thinking, man? What were we thinking when we wrote 'Rad Wings Of Destiny'?" Like, what the fuck are we thinking? It's strum songs, like he's strumming electric guitar in all those songs. And so I'm, like, 'Man,' I told Klaus, 'We gotta write a record full of chunks, man.' All of these songs reflect a heavier rock/metal sound. Some are straight badass old metal. It's just a cool vibe — it really is. I'm glad that it went that way. It's cool as fuck, man. It's great."

In the spring of 2023, UGLY KID JOE completed its first U.S. tour in 27 years.

After a 15-year hiatus, UGLY KID JOE reformed in 2012 and has toured extensively throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

The band released the EP "Stairway To Hell" in 2012 and the full-length "Uglier Than They Used Ta Be" in 2015.

Image credit: deadmeat