Former Bad Wolves vocalist Tommy Vext has hired on guitarists Logan Mader (Once Human, ex-Machine Head/Soulfly) and Bill Hudson (NorthTale, etc), drummer Tim Yeung (I Am Morbid, etc.), and bassist Kevin Creekman for the latest incarnation of his The Lone Wolf band.
Vext previously played with Yeung in Divine Heresy and Westfield Massacre, while the latter outfit also featured Bill Hudson. A music video with this latest lineup was recently shot and a behind the scenes look was offered below.
Vext, who had to postpone his planned summer touring due to ongoing issues with vocal cord tears, just released his new The Lone Wolf album “Grand Theft Audio” today, August 19th. Vext commented of the new additions to his band in the below video, stating that some of the changes came about in regards to performance issues with some of his past hired guns.
He also detailed how a relationship with the former drummer of his backing band went sour, with trash talking emerging online and the police eventually having to be involved. According to Vext, the authorities were looped in over the alleged theft of Vext‘s property by said former bandmate and the changing of locks at his studio.
Despite the new additions, Vext went on to clarify in the video that The Lone Wolf remains a solo project that is governed solely by himself:
“I am The Lone Wolf. There is no band. No one… If I pay people to play onstage with me, they are not in the band. At any point in time I possess the ability to fire anyone—especially if they don’t write any songs and don’t learn to play the songs that they’re given appropriately.
Now Rob Zombie doesn’t have to deal with this kind of backtalk, right? Five Finger Death Punch have members that are hired guns, they don’t have to deal with this kind of backtalk. Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson don’t have to tolerate this kind of backtalk, this kind of nonsense.
And so, unfortunately… I’ve been very transparent. I made a mistake in Bad Wolves by pretending that there was a band. This time around I’ve been completely transparent. There is no band. It’s me. I go in the studio. I pay top dollar to work with the best guitar players and songwriters I can afford and I write my songs with the most professional, fucking best of the best. And if it’s too hard for a stage performer to perform, ya gotta go. I’m spending too much money and that’s just the fact of the matter.
These dudes are the fucking pinnacle, best of the best of the best that you could possibly hope to jam with. So if they’re willing to jam with me, then that’s what I’m gonna do.”
He later spoke of what to expect from the aforementioned new lineup, offering: “when we reschedule the tour and we come back, it’s gonna be a very different kind of show.” Speaking later of the support he’s received for The Lone Wolf and his recent vocal issues, Vext stated:
“If there’s anybody who is a part of Lone Wolf, it’s not anybody that I hire and pay a salary to, it’s the fans. Because I was cancelled, you all said ‘no, you’re not cancelling him” and you guys supported me. And you continue to support me. And you are causing problems in the music industry, you don’t understand, like behind the scenes. The amount of support that I get from you guys is causing problems. Because the people who think they’ve been in power for so long and can control what artists think and say and do, have realized they can not do it anymore.
There are other people who were almost cancelled for not getting the jab or this, that and the other, and they looked at the situation that happened with me and everyone thought twice, they were like ‘hmmm, this is not a good idea.’ And that’s what happens when you have a consumer educated audience of people who are not fucking sheep and not just going along with the bullshit that the gatekeepers of the fucking world say we’re supposed to do. So congratulations to anyone who lasted throughout all the COVID, all the purebloods. It took 818 days for the CDC to finally announce that COVID was over, and we did it, we did it.
And we’re not gonna stop, and we will not be silenced. I’ll get deleted, I’ll keep coming back, they’ll do this, they’re gonna do everything, I will not fucking surrender. I will not give up. As long as I draw breath and you guys support me, I will fight this fucking fight.”
He continued:
“You need to tell everybody about this album like the news talked about COVID. That’s what we have to do. That’s what we have to do. And the fucking message has to get out there, because in every single one of those songs, there’s a message that needs to be heard by people.
Because everything that I’m saying comes from a real place. We have a massive mental health issue in this country and we have a massive need for patriotism to be put back into the mainstream. And so when you go and you listen to the record and you hear it start to finish, you will understand the fucking depth and the weight of the message of what this record really means… This record needs to go down in history.
Not because of me, but because I am literally just a person who took everything that we were experiencing and I just put it into music. And no one else had the balls to do it, and that’s why it has to make a dent.”
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