It’s been two years since Megalithic Symphony came out and it sounds like Aaron Bruno of electro-rock group AWOLNATION is ready to start recording a second album. In an interview with Radio.com, he told us what the fans can expect and talked about his creative live on the tour bus.
“It’ll always have a sense of melody, because that’s just, for better or for worse, who I am,” said Bruno, who is set to play KROQ’s Weenie Roast this Saturday (May 18).
However, Bruno underlined his statement about melodies with a promise that AWOLNATION’s new material will push the boundaries of structure, as well as himself, in new and strange directions. “I tapped on that a little bit with one of our songs called ‘Knights of Shame’, which is 12:30 long,” Bruno said. “I never thought I’d do something like that.”
That said, Bruno does want to keep at the level of success he’s seen so far. AWOLNATION’s breakout hit, “Sail,” hit No. 7 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart and attracted the attention of Macy Gray, who offered up her own cover of it. They’ve followed up their “Sail”-fueled success in recent months with new songs appearing on various soundtracks (“Some Kind of Joke” on the Iron Man 3 soundtrack, “ThisKidsNotAlright” for the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us).
Contrary to what most artists think of the road, Bruno seems to be fueled by it creatively. Showing a lot of discipline, he says he’s been getting a lot of writing for the new album done while the band is on tour.
“Most of the time [on tour] I’m thinking about what that record is going to sound like and the direction it is going to go; The different artwork I’m going to have to put together for basically the whole look of the next record and the whole next thing,” Bruno said. “Touring is a good place to do that because you get to test out songs on your fans and strangers at some points. A lot of times there’s not that much to do on certain days off. Or you wake up in your bus and, of course, there’s the venue and then not much else around.”
Catch the band playing KROQ’s Weenie Roast Saturday May 18 at noon PT. If you can’t make it to L.A. you can watch the webcast from your couch.
