DOPE Frontman Discusses Upcoming Album

DOPE frontman Edsel Dope recently spoke to RockConfidential.com about the group's upcoming fourth album, "American Apathy", tentatively due in early 2005 via Artemis Records. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

RockConfidential.com: The new record will be out in February, right? Still the same record label?

Edsel Dope: "Yeah, February or March. Last time we were under two labels and now we just have one. We're solely on Artemis now. Artemis bought the independent label that was started for the last DOPE record. The guy that funded the label just wasn't quite sure of how the music business worked. He was making a bunch of bad business decisions because he was handling the money. Danny Goldberg at Artemis stepped in and bought him out so Danny could have control of the band so we could do this record with him and put it out right. We're looking forward to a nice long campaign in going out and promoting this record. The last record we only put out a year ago and man — here we are with a new record."

RockConfidential.com: What's up with the new stuff? Is it something we're going to expect or are there things that will surprise us a little?

Edsel Dope: "We're trying to make it a really long record. It's going to be about 17 or 18 tracks. We're gonna have some unreleased older stuff on there as some bonus tracks and maybe a live track or two. The new material that's on the record, there's 12 or 13. The biggest difference in this record and the past couple of records we've put out is it's more of a record that's put out to play live. Me and Virus strived to continue to stretch the boundaries of what DOPE's sound was to prove to ourselves and everybody else that we have the ability to be much more of a wide sounding band than I think most people expected. This record we sorta went back into the box a little and just worked on material that we thought would be kickass to go out there and play live in front of the kids and get the pit movin'. Not that the last couple of records haven't been heavy but this record's definitely geared toward playing live."

RockConfidential.com: How long did it take to put the material together for the new record?

Edsel Dope: "We kinda started right after we were done with the last one. We weren't really sure when we were going to put out a record or what we were gonna do. We looked at each other and realized we had a whole record here. It usually takes us a while to where we feel like we have a body of work that we feel like is worthy of being called a new DOPE album. It just all sounded right. We just felt like we had it. We put it in our mind that we wanted to put it out as soon as possible. If we're gonna go out there and keep touring why not put out another record to give us that many more songs to play. The fans that we were talking to were asking us about a new record. It just kinda came to be. We're real happy with where this one's going. It's more in the box of the typical DOPE sound than the last couple of records. It's a little more "in your face" and just gets right down to business."

RockConfidential.com: So is the record completely finished or do you need to finish some stuff up?

Edsel Dope: "It's technically finished. Since I don't have to hand it in for a little while we're still messing with stuff. We're looking for some cool stuff to throw on that you wouldn't expect to have as a bonus track. There's a couple of more songs that have to get mixed still, but for the most part the record's finished. Who knows? I could turn on the computer and sit back with my band and we might have another track for the record. If the inspiration is there who in the hell knows what's going to happen. We're happy with it the way it is. We're psyched and it's killer."

Read Edsel Dope's entire interview with RockConfidential.com at this location.