TROUBLE Singer Talks About New Songs, Being Screwed Over By Records Labels

TROUBLE frontman Eric Wagner recently spoke to Metal-Rules.com about the group's much-anticipated follow-up to 1995's "Plastic Green Head", tentatively due in late 2004 through an as-yet-undetermined label. Asked if the forthcoming CD, titled "Seven", will continue in the same direction as its predecessor, or if it will represent an "updated" version of TROUBLE, Wagner said, "Hmm... it's kinda hard to say right now because things tend to change when you are recording the album. I go down to a rehearsal and record the new songs that could be one of these. I just sit there and try to write worst to it, y'know. So if they sound different on there, then they do when we go recording them.

"All our albums all the time, we never try to write a certain way," he continued. "It's just how we felt at that particular square at a time. I thought 'Plastic Green Head' was a little more depressing than 'Manic Frustration'. And after the 'Manic Frustration' album we weren't getting along too well in TROUBLE at all, y'know, and a lot of like drug references were included into the lyrics of 'Plastic Green Head', 'coz everybody, well at least me, started to party more and get away like I had enough. I just tried to forget about shit. So this new album, 'Seven', is more like... getting away from that again, you know what I mean? I guess maybe it could be compared to our other albums, maybe the "Trouble" record could be the one more like that... something like that. 'The Skull' album was depressing, too because we were doing lots of drugs back then. So 'End of My Days' was the beginning of that beginning again, so this new one is kind of the same thing again. So if I had to compare it to any of our stuff, I would say that one maybe. Uh... it's still really hard to say which of our earlier albums I should compare our new stuff to. It's damn difficult."

With regards to whether the band will issue the new CD on their own or if they will sign with a new label prior to the album's release, Wagner said, "I personally want to do it ourselves because I have nothing left for these labels. If somebody comes to me, I mean I'm gonna listen. I'm not going to say, 'No thanks... now get out of here!' I'll listen what people have to say, but I'd rather just want to put it out ourselves and get a distribution deal or something. There have been a few labels that have called and asked from me, 'What we wanna do...? Let's hear it...' And I have just said, 'OK... whatever... bye!' I just wanna point out that we have been screwed more than once already, so I'm in no big hurry to get screwed again. Twice-three times is enough already. Anyway, we have a couple of things in our minds already concerning this. Namely, I think that we are just gonna go into a recording studio and pay for it yourselves. It pays things a lot of easier then, it's not bullshit then. It's right here, you know what I mean. So we'll see what labels have to offer. Like I already said, there's about 6 labels there that are kind of interested in doing something with us. Then there's a couple of distribution companies as well, so the only thing we'll do is just to wait and see what happens. Because I'm not gonna take your money right now because then you own it and we don't want that any more. With the other albums we were on 3 different labels, so it's a big mess then. Now if there's gonna be fourth, I want it all on one thing, I want the whole catalogue on one thing." Read the rest of the interview here.