Y&T Guitarist Says Band Will 'Absolutely' Release Another Studio Album

Niclas Müller-Hansen of Sweden's Metalshrine recently conducted an interview with guitarist John Nymann of California rockers Y&T. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metalshrine: Any plans for another Y&T album?

John Nymann: Absolutely, yeah. We just released a live album. I'm not gonna say we really planned it, but every time we come off this two-month tour here in the fall, the band is really tight and solid and we play this final show at Mystic Theater and we do it every year and it's always a great show and we're well rehearsed by then, so we went, "Why don't we shoot a video or let's just document it and do something?" and since we were doing that, Tom Size [Y&T's sound engineer] brought all his recording equipment to link up with the DVD, but the problem with this place is that it's got a terrible lighting truss and it just doesn't look good enough for a DVD, so after we saw the footage we went, "Naahhh, it's no good." But we started listening back to the tracks and we go, "Fuck, it's pretty hot!" So we thought, "Let's just release this thing." And we didn't think much of it. It was just gonna be a underground thing, but Frontiers said, "We want that record!” so it counts as another part of our contract, so we gave it to them. It made a pretty big splash, so that's good. It's the perfect record if you're a Y&T fan, because it's our whole show and it covers all the bases. There's a lot of good stuff on there. But we're definitely full of ideas and ready to go and keep playing. "Facemelter", it was a surprise how good that turned out considering we had no ideas going into the studio. I mean, I had a few and Phil [Kennemore, original bassist] had a few, but it wasn't like… we were under contract and Jill [Dave Meniketti's wife and Y&T's manager] said to us, "You have to have this record done in three months!" and so we just started and then boom after a couple of weeks, the ideas started to flow and we had more than enough.

Metalshrine: Is that a good thing, working under pressure?

John Nymann: I'm gonna say it does in a way, because otherwise it's so easy to go, "Well, maybe we should redo it?" We got to a point where we didn't have time and [we had to say to ourselves], "Those tracks are good enough.” And they turned out to be fine. Who knows? I can't say for sure, but it's like when you're cooking. You don't wanna overseason it and all of a sudden you're ruining it. They only thing I'd say about that record is we didn't wanna have it over produced like in the '80s. We wanted it to be more pure and keep it more organic. Some people were like "Why don't you put more jizz on it?” and we were like, "Why, let's keep it raw." Straight-ahead tones and not a bunch of echo and stuff on the vocals.

Metalshrine: So there's a possibility of something new next year?

John Nymann: I can't say for sure when we're gonna go back in there and do it, but within the next couple of years, I'm sure. We have to do something.

Read the entire interview from Metalshrine.