Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with HardDrive Radio, Beartooth’s Caleb Shomo discussed the band’s upcoming album. According to him, “there’s a chance this is the best record [he will] ever write.”

Shomo said the following:

“It is fully finished, turned in. I’ve been working on it for a very long time. I started working on it. [Last year’s single] ‘Riptide’ was the first song I did for it, and, obviously, that’s been out for a long time now — like eight, nine months. The first real, real intense writing session specifically for it was in late February, early March of ’22. I went out to Los Angeles, and [recent single] ‘Sunshine!’ was the first song I wrote out there.

It’s so hard to put into words, what it is. I think it’s just one of those things that until people hear it, they’re not really gonna get it. But it is very much a record for the people who have been following the story.

Like I’ve kind of talked about, I’ve tried to make it, intentionally for a long time now, that these first five albums are kind of one big story and the story of my 20s. And it’s all very linear. And the way it ends is amazing. It’s crazy and not a happy ending to it. But the theme of the album as a whole is definitely a lot more hopeful.

It was written during and after me really making all those big changes in my life and focusing on mental health and physical health and all of that. And it’s just manifested into a super-unique record. I did most of it in Los Angeles. I did a lot of it on tour. I mixed it kind of in Los Angeles and New York. I just finished — I mastered it at the Hit Factory, like finished the mix and master there not too long ago. I just went out and did a whole label showcase for it. I brought ’em out and explained the record and played it for ’em.

We just have so many cool things coming up. I just cannot wait — cannot wait.”

He also added:

“There were certain things, going into this record, that I knew I wanted to do and I knew was important to the sequence. And honestly, in the sequence, there’s just a whole story — it’s just my last about 14, 15 months of my life; maybe 16 now. It’s just that. It’s just explaining those emotions and those feelings throughout the songs and through the highs and the lows.

The beginning of the record is kind of trying to captivate these extreme highs of when I quit drinking and all my chemicals are realigning and my body is kind of starting to work better again and all this stuff. I had this three-month crazy, crazy high that I was on because of that. And that’s kind of how it starts. And the middle of the record, it’s kind of about that leveling out and having to deal with some really big things that happened in my life and dealing with the loss of somebody very important to me, and I discuss that. And then it kind of wraps up at the end with… I don’t really wanna give away the ending, but I don’t think it’s at all what people would expect out of a BEARTOOTH record — in a very good way.

I’ve never been more proud of any piece of work I’ve ever done. And I hope this isn’t the case, but I think there’s a chance this is the best record I’ll ever write. And that’s not to slight myself, but I just mean with my circumstances that I’ve been going through.

This last year has been the most pivotal year of my entire life, even aside from all of the things I’ve done in my musical career and whatnot, just for me personally. Honestly, during ‘Below’ and that kind of era, and even before that, I always kind of had it in the back of my mind, ‘I’m probably gonna be dead in my mid-30s, late 30s of either suicide or alcohol related’ or I don’t really know. But I didn’t have any self-love. And that has all completely shifted. And there’s been a lot of work that went into that. And getting to explain that on a record just made for this incredibly unique thing. And obviously, I hope it is not my… I think I’m only getting started. But I think that it is a completely different animal — one hundred percent different animal. Obviously it’s still a BEARTOOTH record and it’s still me. But this is just kind of me showing the world what I’m fucking capable of. And I’m very proud of it.”

[via Blabbermouth]