Hoobastank’s Spring 2015 Interview Roundup: Tons Of New Songs + Two Titles
One year ago, Hoobastank started working on their sixth studio album, the followup to 2012’s Fight Or Flight. They shared plenty of studio updates between March and June, but once touring recommenced that summer, the new music was put on hold. Months have passed with no news about the next album. In March this year, we got just one studio video with some hints of new Hoobastank music:
Finally, last month Stencil Magazine caught up with singer Doug Robb for a quick interview (see page 135). The band was getting ready for their UK tour, but Doug also mentioned new music. He said they’ve been writing a lot and have more song ideas that they’ve ever had before!
We’re well into 2015 now, what has the band been up to so far this year?
I would say we’re just writing and writing and writing. We’re meeting with different producers to see who we want to use to record these songs, that’s a really short answer but kind of what we’ve been doing.
How far along are you in the process?
As far as the recording aspect we’re not far at all, but as far as the writing aspect, I was telling this to the other guys, I don’t think we’ve ever had so many song ideas. Whether they are fully complete or three quarters of the way complete with the music and all the vocals ideas, I don’t think we’ve ever had this many before going in for recording ever! So I guess that’s a good sign.
On April 27th, Dom Smith of Soundsphere also spoke to Doug about the new tunes:
For the past few months we’ve been writing a lot, and not so much getting in a room together and trying to write together but we will run through these ideas at home and record them and literally email them to me or hand them to me on CD or something. I’ll then put them into my computer and work on them to make them into songs. Traditionally in the past we would demo songs and ideas, but we’d have a few. You hear bands saying, ‘we went into the studio and had 40 songs to choose from’. We were never one of those bands; we only had 13 songs knowing that they came out of nowhere. This time around I always thought of that we could write a tonne of songs, but it never worked out that way.
I ironically right now was kind of sitting on the most amounts of song ideas we’ve ever had without having an actual album. We’ve got more ideas and songs recorded than ever, so we were thinking, what do we do with them? Even talking with the manager and people about different producers, so obviously we are going to record the songs and we actually started with a couple of them. But in the great landscape of the music industry, it’s how we want to release these. Do we want to do it again; like have 12 songs on an album, or do we want to do something a bit different like just release a few songs a month for a full year? So we haven’t really set a course and this is it, we have a lot of music and we are going to record in the process of it.
Doug revealed two new song titles: “Way Of The World” and “Chaos.” They have tons of other working titles as well. Of the new songs, Doug stated, “It’s one of those things were we played with ideas with no direction, and it sounds different from the past. We’ve been around for so long it’s hard for me to tell what the difference is, I’ve just been there.”
On May 11th, we got a video interview from the UK during the tour. Doug spoke to Dann of the Mike James Rock Show about Hoobastank’s overdue return to the UK and what they’re working on now. Around the 5:41 mark, Doug started talking about the music they’re writing and recording:
The past 7 or 8 months, for me personally, just being a dad – I’ve got two kids – and trying to write music. And we’ve got a ton of music that we don’t know what to do with at this point. Our summer’s a little off and on, touring-wise, it’s semi-busy I would say. Which makes it difficult to lock down meetings with producers and stuff like that.
At the end of the year we’re gonna have a ton of music probably recorded, and at that point we’ll have to sit around and go, “Do we want to put 12 songs out like an album, or do we do want to do it differently?” Do we try to evolve the way we release music as well? So we’ll see. I don’t know. A lot of people go, “I want it all at once!” And for some people it would be good to get two songs a month for a few months.
Or, as the interviewer pointed out, a couple of EPs instead of a full length. He then asked, “So are you saying you’ve got more than 12 songs recorded?”
Yes. But not recorded like they’re done. We’re one of those bands that we’d always talk to our friends who are in bands too, and they’d go, “Oh yeah, we went into the studio and we had 40 songs, and then the producer chopped it down to 20, then we chose the best 12.” That always sounded like, wow, that’s really admirable. We’d go in with 12 songs and record 12 songs and leave with 12 songs! You know, we’d already chiseled away everything. Often we’d have to go back in and write some more, just to have something extra.
But I don’t know, for whatever reason, this time around we have close to 30 song ideas. Things that a producer would hear and either say, “That’s perfect, don’t touch it” or “Holy s–t, that’s terrible, let’s move everything around.” But they’re there. 29, 30 different ones. And we’ve never had that many, ever in our careers. I’m curious to see how much will change, how much we’ll actually record for real…
The interviewer commented, “It must be exciting to have to have that much to go in with.”
It’s a little exciting, and frustrating too. Because we have so much, and when I get home I’m probably still gonna write some more, so we’re gonna have even more and more. And then you start to grow attached to these ideas, and you can’t release 40 songs. So some of them are just gonna die. And often it’s the ones that you love certain parts about.
Listen to the full interview below:
It’s exciting to learn how much Hoobastank has written and demoed already! We also got our first two song titles: “Way Of The World” and “Chaos,” both of which could appear on the upcoming album.
Hoobastank is still fairly early in the recording process, and we most likely won’t hear their sixth album until sometime next year. In the meantime, we have more studio sneak peeks to look forward to as they continue working on the new music.
Stay up-to-date on the new album over on our recording page. Keep checking back here for all the latest Hoobastank music news.
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