VINNIE PAUL Says Making Heavier HELLYEAH Album Was 'More Natural'

Christina Fuoco Karasinski of MLive.com recently conducted an interview with former PANTERA and current HELLYEAH drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On being the underdog of the music world:

Vinnie: "You have those people that are willing to watch us do what we do now in our current band, which is HELLYEAH. Then, you got those people that don't want to let go of what we did in the past with MUDVAYNE, PANTERA, NOTHINGFACE, DAMAGEPLAN. Those people are hard to convince. I feel like we made the kind of record that they want to hear this time around. The previous fans are gonna love the heaviness and the aggressive nature of it. I think anybody that was ever on the fence about HELLYEAH is gonna go, 'Wow, this is what I wanted to hear from those guys.'"

On debuting new music in concert:

Vinnie: "We are firm believers that the first time somebody hears a brand new song from the band, it shouldn't be on a cell phone camera with the distortion or anything where you can't make it out. We want to present it right. The only song [from the forthcoming third HELLYEAH album, 'Band Of Brothers'] that's been released to this point that's out there is 'War In Me'. We've been playing that live every night. It's been going down great. The new single, 'Band of Brothers', when it comes out, then we're going to start doing that live, too. Eventually when the record's out we want to do a whole lot of stuff off the new record."

On recording "Band of Brothers" in Dallas at Paul's home studio, VP's Upstairs Studio:

Vinnie: "We turned the big living room into the drum room with a 40-foot ceiling, put the guitar amps into the game room, turned one of the bedrooms into a control room put video monitors up all around. We usually get up around 3 or 4 (p.m.). We'd start barbecuing and after that it's time to do a little drinking and then we start jamming. Everything just flowed real natural. [After taking] a little trip down [down to The Clubhouse, Paul's 'adult entertainment establishment,' to have cocktails] we'd come back and wake up with a hangover and a hangover's inspiration to do it all over again. You gotta have fun doing it. We're definitely very serious."

On the more heavier, more aggressive sound of the new HELLYEAH album:

Vinnie: "On this particular record, we felt like with the first two HELLYEAH records we really stepped outside of the box and experimented with a lot of different styles and things we hadn't done with any of our previous bands. With this record, we wanted to get really focused and get back to our heavy metal roots and see what happens if we made a record that was reminiscent of something that all of us had done in the past. All of us [come] from really metal-based bands and that's what all our roots were, metal. It was a challenge for us to step out and do some Southern rock and a little bluesy stuff and stuff like we did on the first two records. This was more natural."

Read more from MLive.com.

"Band Of Brothers" (song) audio stream (courtesy of AOL's Noisecreep):