The album, to be titled 'truANT' (notice a theme there?) had it's final mix on May 21st, exactly one year to the day after the band's tour bus accident in Europe, killing the driver and injuring all the members of the band. Dryden Mitchell came off the worst suffering a fractured C-2 vertebra requiring surgery to fuse two vertebrae and screws to be drilled into his skull. Talking to Rolling Stone last week he mentioned still having nerve damage that feels like "a bad sunburn all the time, but at least now it's tolerable. Before it was just painful." (ouch)
While unable to perform, the band spent much the last year writing new material bringing Dean and Robert DeLeo of the Stone Temple Pilots in to produce the record, the content which now sounds "pretty eclectic" with Dryden continuing "There's bands that have nothing tragic happen and it takes them two years to make a record. I can guarantee I won't be as proud of any record for the rest of my life as I am about this one. I'd have a hard time playing rap-rock and later showing it to my kids and having them tell me how gay I am."
Having finished the album, the band plan to release it by the autumn, perhaps even in August to mirror the US release on the 19th. Watch out for singles preceding it, possibly including '1,000 Days' and even 'Tia Lupe' fit to bursting with Spanish lyrics, brass and acoustic guitars...
what did you expect? a cover of 'Thriller'?