American alternative metal band 10 Years return with a new studio album and welcome back band members Brian Vodinh (guitar / drums) and Matt Wantland (guitar). (how to live) AS GHOSTS is the band’s eighth studio album – and their first with Mascot Records – and was produced by Grammy Award winning Nick Raskulinecz.
Singer Jesse Hasek offers, “Six albums and a hundred songs in, I wondered if I’ve already written my best stuff. But at some point, you start to get real adult problems. Life has such a numbing to it. You see people go from such optimism in their 20s to having life just beat them down later. I think we all kind of get desensitized and numb to life on some level. That’s what this song is about.”
Sometimes when band members reunite, it’s as if no time has passed and nothing has changed.
That couldn’t be further from the truth for 10 Years. When guitarist/drummer Brian Vodinh and guitarist Matt Wantland returned to the Knoxville, Tennessee alt-metal/post-grunge band for their eighth album (how to live) AS GHOSTS, they burst through their comfort zones to create something new. Something better. Something career-defining. Hasek reflects, “It’s funny. I named our last record From Birth to Burial (2015) because I thought it was our final record. It just didn’t feel like 10 Years without Brian and Matt, and having them back is really a reunion of the core writing team. This new record actually feels like a real rebirth for the band.”
While Vodinh handled drums and guitar on the new album, he’s switching to just guitar for the live shows, moving Chad Huff from guitar to bass, while Kyle Mayer stays on drums. “We’re bringing it back the way they should be,” says Vodinh, who left the band due to family commitments in 2013. “It feels great to be back with these guys and we’re in such a better place musically and creatively than ever before.”
That better place stems, in part, from a more collaborative writing process. “It used to be that just Jesse and I would write the full song, and the other guys would add a little spice to it. This time, we’re starting the writing process as a full band. Sometimes it starts with a riff. Sometimes it starts with a vocal. Our formula is no formula, and it kind of works. And, we work together in a more constructive and healthier environment now,” explains Vodinh.
The sixth collaborator was Grammy award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz. “Nick made us step outside our comfort zone,” explains Hasek. “It made for a different sounding record. The one thing we never wanted to do is recreate the same thing over and over. We have always been musicians that love to explore and venture into new horizons.”
(how to live) AS GHOSTS will be released October 27.
Pre-orders available HERE
