California rockers THE OFFSPRING are continuing work on their long-awaited tenth album for a tentative 2019 release. Guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman told Junkee in a new interview: “We’ve been spending a bit of time in the studio with [producer] Bob Rock, who worked on our last two albums as well. He’s great, man — we get along with him really well. We’ve got a bunch of new songs that we’re preparing to go in and record right now.”
He added: “I think there’s a record’s worth in there, but we’re thinking that maybe the songs are just a little too different. We know there’s a song or two on every record that comes out of left field for us, but it’s more than just a couple this time. Right now, we’re entertaining the idea of doing two records — one where we can put all of these, and another of straight-up OFFSPRING songs.”
This past summer, Noodles told Australia’s Music Feeds that THE OFFSPRING was contemplating releasing all of its new music on two separate albums.
“We’ve been working with Bob on and off on this record for five years, really,” he said. “But we had a real productive string this year, in the earlier part of the year. We had probably five or six songs that we did just right then and it started to feel like maybe this is the direction we should be going with this record. A little bit more straight-forward OFFSPRING stuff.
“I think we’re looking at making two records out of it — you know, like, splitting ’em up and coming out with a pretty straightforward punk and rock record that sounds like us, and then maybe saving some of the crazier stuff for another record.”
As for what THE OFFSPRING‘s “crazier stuff” sounds like, Noodles said: “Well there’s always a song that we do [on each album] — because it’s just fun for us to experiment in the studio where we take different sounds — so sometimes we’ll try some piano or keyboard kind of sound… We have a song that has a lot of horns in it, like a full-on horn section in it, and we’ve been working on that song for a long time. I think that one might be the the one kind of wacky one that we keep on this record; well, at least I hope it is. We love this song; it’s such a fun song. It’s a risk to put it out there, but at some point you’ve just gotta say, ‘Screw it, man,’ and just go with what you’re feeling and let the chips fall where they may. So I think we’re gonna do that.”
Noodles also confirmed that THE OFFSPRING is without a record label at the moment and is looking into various options about how to make its new music available to the masses. “We’ve been talking with a bunch of different labels and distributors, but so far nothing’s really stuck,” he said. “So we’re not sure how we’re gonna do this. I mean at this point, the way things are distributed, we’re thinking we could even maybe do it ourselves.”
THE OFFSPRING debuted a new song called “It Won’t Get Better” live in concert this past June and has been performing it ever since. Noodles described the track as “kind of like a straight-forward OFFSPRING song.”
THE OFFSPRING‘s last single, “Coming For You”, dropped in 2015.
Photo credit: Sam Jones / MSO PR
Thanks: Dying Scene
