Mushroomhead Targeting ‘Early Spring of 2019′ for New Album
Mushroomhead drummer Skinny was the latest guest on Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio program. Discussing the band's Volume III DVD, he talked about the visual element of the band and their creative aspirations on the whole. While there must be compromises along the way, Skinny explains how the band have always tried to maintain the most creative control over things as possible. He also forecasted when the follow-up to 2014's The Righteous and the Butterfly will be released.
This DVD has a cinematic look with the intimacy of a whole movie. What was the biggest challenge about blending distinct styles of filming into one linear cohesive video?
I think it was just the compilation of three-and-a-half years and trying to put it together. When you said cinematic it was very much what we were going for. We wanted to kind of play it out like a movie or an album versus your typical band DVD. The first 30-40 minutes of it are based on traditional videos and tying it together with live scenes, but more of the slow motion. It has more of an even pacing. So the audio matches the visual really well and that was definitely a little more challenging than I thought it was going to be.
Clean singer Steve Rauckhorst and guitarist Tankx joined the band earlier this year. Why are different people with new ideas important to a band like Mushroomhead?
Mushroomhead have been going for almost 25 years — actually the 23rd, but it will be 25 years onstage for Mushroomhead. Having new members every so often really lends to the longevity that has become Mushroomhead and the evolution. The ideas are not just fresh, but, traditional. Everyone that joins the band knows the sound and they don't come in with a whole new approach, saying, 'Well here is my idea and the band should sound like this.' Everyone kind of understands that it should be fun, that it should be heavy and it should be moody. The good ones just seem to write themselves.
Mushroomhead are self-contained and very hands-on in just about every aspect of recording, filming and production. When you started, was becoming a fully equipped artist collective what you envisioned?
We have always wanted to maintain full artist control, if possible, and we understood that the bigger you get and the more people you deal with, obviously you have to let go some of the creative aspects. It has always been challenging to always make sure that we are 90 percent in creative control and it is not always easy to do.
Sometimes you have to pick and choose your battles as far as letting other people lead as far as whether it is a record label, PR or management. Sometimes you are too close to the creation to see the big picture or to just be able to step back and take a look from the outside. I have to say that has been one of the things over the years, is learning to accept creative criticism from other people that aren't necessarily artists.
You formed Mushroomhead in your early 20s. What aspect of the evolution of the band has been a parallel of the result of your growth as a person?
I think the main thing was trying to maintain relative happiness. Whether it is in my personal life or creative life and at the end of the day, we just wanted to create something that we liked and basically make art and create things we were feeling. We just so happen to strike a nerve with people and we are very fortunate that people ended up liking the things we ended up creating and liking for ourselves.
We never set out to be a band that was going to be around for 25 years. We were just making art and found out that people really enjoyed what we did. We are very fortunate and I think that really lends to the longevity of the band and also the longevity of me as an artist, as a person. It's really been one hell of a ride.
There's a lot of mystique in the Mushroomhead imagery. What does that give you license to do with the music that might not be possible otherwise?
It lends to one hell of a creative palate for us. The majority of artists are nerds, whether it's something from an audio recording, whether it is Pro-Tools or making some kind of visual element, whether it be video and then editing and working inside of Premier or coloring with Divinity or creating logos and designs with Photoshop or something like that. We have definitely had taken advantage of the technology that has grown up around us. When we first started, we didn't have the Internet, obviously, it was so long ago, we had fax machines. Things have changed considerably in the artists' favor all around.
Could you tell us what's in store for the end of the year into 2019?
After this one wraps up, we head back home to go right into the studio to continue writing album eight, which will be out early Spring of 2019, if everything goes right. Then we are going to do one more small American tour at the end of October, like a two-week run and that will be to celebrate Halloween and 25 years of Mushroomhead.
Grab your copy of Mushroomhead's 'Volume III' DVD here and follow the band on Facebook to stay up to date with everything they're doing. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie’s weekend show here.
2018's Best Metal Albums... So Far
10 Greatest Masked Rock + Metal Bands