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• As for the new album, you’ve been writing for a lot longer than normal, which suggests either writer’s block or a double album.
There’s certainly no writer’s block and there’s been no shortage of ideas. Without going into detail, this is a huge undertaking, what we’re doing. We’ve been working really hard and probably longer on this than other albums in the past. But you’ll see why.
• It’s not going to be a blues album, then?
No, it’s not a blues album! But we felt like we needed to do this, and that we needed to do something right now that is going to ground us. This album absolutely addresses that.
• Some fans suggested you played it too safe with the last two albums, whereas with Train Of Thought or Octavarium you took different approaches. Will this new album address those concerns?
Absolutely. This new album is definitely not like anything else we’ve done before. Sometimes you feel like you need to make a change and do something totally different like this, and that’s when the albums like the ones you mention come out. But those albums were also very polarising and a lot of people said they hated them at first. So you take a huge chance whenever you do anything like that, but it’s part of the growth of a band and is massively important to keeping things interesting and keeping the spirit alive, and keeping people engaged, ourselves engaged, and excited.