It's a good thing Syracuse, New York, sludge-rockers Brand New Sin aren't huge cupcake fans.
Following the band's run last fall with Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society, frontman Joe Altier and the rest of Brand New Sin crawled into their practice space to start thinking about their next LP — the inevitable follow-up to 2005's Recipe for Disaster.
"It just seemed like everyone was bringing a bottle of tequila in every night, so we started seeing what would happen with us pouring tequila down our throats and writing songs," Altier explained. "And, lo and behold, this album came out of us."
The crushing LP, which they've admirably called Tequila, hit stores on Tuesday — a week after the band headed out with Mushroomhead, Soil and the Autumn Offering for a Jägermeister-sponsored tour that runs through December 2 in Utica, New York. And yes, the tour's organizers did give Brand New Sin hell for the booze-fueled outing's title.
"We actually told them ahead of time that we were calling the record Tequila," the singer said. "And they kind of busted our balls a little bit, but they all know that we support the Jägermeister pretty damn well."
But the bottle wasn't the sole source of inspiration behind Tequila. Lyrically, Altier said he tried to exorcise several personal demons that he'd developed between the release of Recipe and the writing and recording of the band's third opus.
"This record deals with a lot of what's happened in the last two years of my life," he explained, adding that he went through a period of heavy drug and alcohol use that took a serious toll on various relationships. "My world went from being one way to the complete opposite. When we did Recipe, I was still married. Now, two years later, a divorce has happened. I moved. I had gone through a rebound relationship that f---ed me up in a lot of senses. I spent a lot of time soul-purging and soul-searching, as to where my life was going. The only thing I knew was right in my life was my music. So these lyrics were a way for me to heal and put those demons I have been battling to rest. Bad things in a musician's life aren't that bad, because we get to write great songs about it."
Brand New Sin recorded the LP with producer and Life of Agony guitarist Joey Z. Altier says he feels the album's not as formulaic as the band's previous two outings.
"We've always been known as a live band, so I guess for this record, we were really going after something different," he said. The band recorded every Tequila track live, in one room and in one take. "We wanted to have the element of bleed going on — guitars bleeding into the snare-drum mic, the bass bleeding into the kick-drum mic. That's how bands did it in the '70s, and so there's a very raw, dry feeling on the album. And since we had to nail these songs in one take, it was very challenging for us. We had to be real prepared when we got into the studio, and we had to be real focused."
The Sin shot a video last month for Tequila's first single, "Motormeth." The performance-based clip was shot in the band's hometown during a free benefit concert that drew a crowd of more than 3,000. Look for it to begin airing on MTV2's "Headbangers Ball" this month.
The rest of the week's metal news:
Want to catch a sneak preview of "Living Dead Beat," the first single from Children of Bodom's forthcoming Chaos Ridden Years: Stockholm Knockout Live? Starting Tuesday, fans will have two weeks to download the track exclusively through MTV's Urge, the sole online digital music store that houses a metal genre page. The Chaos album and DVD will hit stores October 24. ... New York hardcore heathens Kill Your Idols are calling it quits. According to a statement from the band, "there is no bad blood, no drama, no in-fighting, no record-label problems or legal battles, no sickness or death or anything of the usual breakup sort. It's time to move on. Most of us will still be involved in music — hardcore, most likely. Some of us will not. Maybe we will be involved in some way or another." ... So, what does one do when they've dropped trou in front of a live audience and the cops are about to toss them in the old Paddy Wagon? If you're Daughters frontman Alexis Stephen Francis Marshall, you hightail it out of there. The singer cut his band's opening set for Pelican short last week at Hollywood's Knitting Factory and bolted after being informed the police were coming to handcuff him for indecent exposure. He jumped offstage and hid at the nearest local bar until the dust settled, upon which time the band headed north to perform in San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle. ...
Chimaira have signed with Ferret Music following the band's departure from the Roadrunner Records roster. A spring release is planned for its forthcoming album, Resurrection. ... Arizona metallers Job for a Cowboy are down a drummer. Elliott Sellers is out, and according to the band, "It was a mutual agreement that ended on a good note." The band's now searching for Sellers' replacement. Interested parties must be willing to tour incessantly. More information on how one can audition for the group is available at Job for a Cowboy's MySpace page. ... Through the Eyes of the Dead, the Acacia Strain, From a Second Story Window and If Hope Dies will team up next month for a monthlong trek that kicks off in Richmond, Virginia, November 16. Dates are booked through December 9 in Houston. ... TTEOTD are also gearing up for this year's Saints and Sinners Festival, for which Unearth and Bleeding Through have also recently been tapped. More than 40 bands will take the stage at the Asbury Park Convention Hall Complex in Asbury, New Jersey, on October 28-29. The roster includes Killswitch Engage, Every Time I Die, Nora, A Life Once Lost, All That Remains and God Forbid. ... Panzerchrist's Roomservice (2003) and Soul Collector (2000) will be reissued with tons of previously unreleased material in December. There are also plans to release the band's 1995 demo on vinyl. ...
Disincarnate's classic 1993 debut Dreams of the Carrion Kind will be re-released on January 21. The reissue will boast three recordings from the band's 1992 demo, Soul Erosion: "Stench of Paradise Burning," "Soul Erosion" and "Confine of Shadows." ... Deathcore demons All Shall Perish will hit the road with Arsis and the Faceless come October 27 in Atlanta. Dates run through November 26 in Hollywood. ... Trivium have posted the video for "Anthem (We Are the Fire)" on RoadrunnerRecords.com/Video. The clip depicts the band and its fans gate-crashing a highbrow yuppie party and getting crazy with a swimming pool and pyro. The video was shot in Agoura Hills, California, on August 11 at the house of an established TV and movie producer who wished to remain anonymous. Director Nathan Cox — who has previously worked with Korn, H.I.M., Marilyn Manson and others — supervised the proceedings. The day before, Trivium shot the video for "Entrance of the Conflagration" in Los Angeles with director Dale Resteghini (Hatebreed, If Hope Dies). ... Following several months of pre-production, black-metal veterans Dimmu Borgir are about to start recording their new disc at Studio Fredman in Gothenburg, Sweden, with producer Fredrik Nordström. "It will be a story-based album with lyrics written accordingly," the band said in a statement. ...
German thrash kings Destruction will release their re-recorded greatest-hits album January 23. The disc will feature songs from the '80s — including "Mad Butcher" and "Thrash Attack" — and songs from Cracked Brain, which featured short-lived singer Andre Grieder. Destruction will tour with Sadus and Municipal Waste from January 20 in Seattle through February 15 in San Antonio. ... Mnemic have named their new album Passenger after a 1908 work by Franz Kafka. The disc, which is scheduled for release February 6, is lyrically rooted in existential ideas and includes "Psykorgasm," "Humanaut" and "Shape of the Formless." "There are several philosophical positions," guitarist Mircea Gabriel Eftemie said in a statement, "one of them being the value and meaning of the world around the individual. ... The other is that existentialism is often associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death and freedom." The band's U.S. tour with Soilwork, Threat Signal and Darkest Hour started Thursday and will run through November 11 in Detroit. Check your PHDs at the door. ... Eighties thrash-metal band Hirax will return to the road in November for a tour that lasts from November 10 in Philadelphia to December 16 in Hollywood. The band's most recent album, The New Age of Terror, came out in 2005.
