The seemingly ballooning wait between new albums from multi-platinum alternative metal band Chevelle has become a worrying trend for some of their fans. It took roughly five years for the follow-up to 2016’s “The North Corridor” to arrive, and it’s now been over three years since the group’s last major label outing, “NIRATIAS” hit stores.
While the outfit have already been working for several years on album #10, there’s at least some valid reasons behind this latest hold-up. “NIRATIAS” concluded the band’s longtime relationship with Epic Records — a arrangement they had maintained since 2002. Since then, Chevelle have aligned themselves with Alchemy Recordings, a rock-centric label co-founded by promoter Danny Wimmer (‘Rock On The Range‘, ‘Aftershock‘, etc.) & Dino Paredes of Shelter Music Group.
This time around, Chevelle also opted to self-produce their forthcoming record, a decision that have proven to be a learning process for them. Drummer Sam Loeffler recently discussed the group’s current status with the album and more in an interview with triblive.com.
In it, Loeffler explained the protracted gestation of this new record and the challenges presented in going it relatively alone:
“We kind of did expect to have [the album] done (already). It’s like pulling teeth… Writing an album and doing all that is like pulling your hair out and then trying to put it back in. Writers love having written, is what I learned. It’s just torturous on my brother. It’s torturous because there’s just so many factors to making something great.
And then the longer you can live with it, the more changes you’re gonna make. So that makes you never want to put it out. You never want to pull the pin and throw the grenade because you’re like, well, it gets better every time I look at it.”
He later added, “You really do need to have peers to be able to take things away from you and say, ‘Stop painting, no more birds in the sky. It’s done.'” Around 10 songs are expected to appear on the eventual finished product, which the group tentatively hope to have out this fall. Loeffler also stated that he and his bandmates have been “skewing towards heavy” with their new material.
Back in 2021, Sam gave a grim assessment of the music industry, revealing that despite Chevelle‘s 6 million album sales, the band had yet to make any money directly from the sale of those recordings. He did however concede that the trio have managed to do well financially in other associated aspects of the music industry, be it touring, merch and the like.
Unfortunately, Chevelle‘s experience isn’t an entirely uncommon situation artists found themselves in during the major label heyday. Labels would advance an artist a substantial monetary sum to get an album made, while also fronting various associated costs in terms of promotion, sometimes even covering touring costs and more.
Until the label recouped their investment in the artist, the actual performers themselves would see little in the way of return directly from their recordings. That situation was compounded in the master recordings often being signed away as property of the label for decades after their release.
Considering the success Chevelle have experienced amid their career, the finances were at least somewhat shocking. Their 2002 sophomore album “Wonder What’s Next” attained 2x multi-platinum status in the United States. It’s 2004 follow-up “This Type Of Thinking (Could Do Us In)” went platinum, while the group’s fourth studio outing, 2007’s “Vena Sera” went gold. Their catalog also boasts five gold-certified singles, while “The Red” earned 2x multi-platinum status and “Send The Pain Below” went platinum.
Several years on from his aforementioned commentary, Sam seems a bit more hopeful for the state of rock music at least, telling TribLIVE of the music industry now:
“We definitely learn to live within it. Although, you can’t be in the music business and not be burnt out on it. That’s impossible because the internet came and essentially beat the music business to a pulp so that it was on life support. And then streaming came in and stomped on the cord that was keeping the music business alive.
So it is regrowing. I think, that is happening. And rock music right now specifically feels like it has a pretty cool resurgence. I think we’re seeing some people take really good things and make them into, integrating them into more music. And then we’re also seeing straight rock have a resurgence as well, which is great.”
Also broached upon in this latest discussion was the possibility of a potential 25th anniversary release of the band’s 1999 debut album “Point #1“. That effort was originally issued in May of 1999 through the now defunct Squint Entertainment label.
An internal power struggle within that label between founder Steve Taylor and Word Entertainment ultimately saw the record mired in legal hang-ups, with Squint Entertainment being shuttered in 2001, with much of its assets being acquired by Warner Records.
As such, “Point #1” has remained a thorn in the side for the band. When asked by TribLIVE why the band haven’t been performing songs from that record live too often anymore, Sam replied:
“We were playing them, but we realized that there was only like five people that knew them. So we might bring one of those back, play ‘Point #1‘ or ‘Prove to You‘ or something like that. That would be fun to do. And Alchemy actually brought up us rerecording that album, like you should re-record it and put it out again. Although with Steve Abini just having passed, it would be nice to promote that as well.
But the person that owns that album, which is not us, we cannot get it back. We’ve tried so many times. And they just, they don’t promote it. They won’t give it. They won’t sell it to us. They won’t do anything with it. It’s pretty frustrating.”
With Tigercub:
07/26 Memphis, TN – Graceland Soundstage
07/27 Biloxi, MS – Beau Rivage Theatre
07/28 Birmingham, AL – Avondale Brewing Co.
07/30 Asheville, NC – Rabbit Rabbit Asheville
07/31 North Myrtle Beach, SC – House of Blues Myrtle Beach
08/02 Wallingford, CT – Dome at Toyota Oakdale Theatre
08/03 Montclair, NJ – The Wellmont Theater
08/05 Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
08/06 Buffalo, NY – Buffalo RiverWorks
08/08 Toronto, ON – HISTORY
08/09 Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
08/10 Madison, WI – The Sylvee
Chevelle:
08/24 Syracuse, NY – The Great New York State Fair
09/26 St. Paul, MN – 93x Family Reunion
09/28 Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life
You can find more from Loeffler over at triblive.com.
