311 is back from a year and a half hiatus. The band will be on tour with Matisyahu this summer, and when that's over, the guys will head into the studio.
Singer Nick Hexum recently spoke to Billboard about the direction of the next album:
Morale is really high right now. We needed a break, we've been working so hard and long. So, everyone has been doing their own thing. I've been traveling and fishing, doing things I do to relax. Now everyone is really jonesing to get back to our primary purpose, which is 311.
I would say we kind of go through a general cycle of making a more straight=ahead album that comes quickly and then we kind of rotate to more of a departure where we take a longer time making the album and inventing more new styles. And albums like 'Grassroots' and 'Transistor' are more like groundbreaking albums, where the 'Blue' (self-titled) album was more like a culminating of touring and came out more quickly.
So due to that back-and-forth thing, we're due for more of a groundbreaking, take-a-long-time-with-it album. We don't know when it's going to be done. We're not going to make any deadlines and promises, but it's time we slightly reinvent ourselves.
Chad and I were having a conversation of combining dance hall and funk. A tiny bit like 'All Mixed up' but much more syncopated. I'd say that the funky, tight, high-energy stuff will come along but I've also been doing a lot of really complex finger picking on acoustic guitar in the style of Michael Hedges. But it's taking influences from all over. It goes from hard rock like System Of A Down to Taproot to Wilco. I'm loving their new album. It's all over the place with our influences. And, we always love reggae.
Here is the aforementioned "All Mixed Up."
Here is "Beautiful Disaster," off the Transistor album.
Here is System of a Down.
