Joe Sims here (lead guitar, songwriter, and Producer for AXEMASTER); I spent the first couple months of when most things were shut down due to the pandemic, by putting together the few riffs I had written over the last couple years and writing all the rest of the music for a new Axemaster album (12 songs and an album intro); then recording demos of each tune to a metronome for a drummer to record his tracks to. I'm extremely proud of the guitar/bass parts I wrote. I personally feel that, taking all the songs into account as a whole, they feature the most creative and interesting guitar parts I've ever written. To me, the stuff is very high on the kick ass scale!!! It has amazing potential, but obviously, to reach that potential, all the other parts (vocals, drums, etc.) and the performances have to be just as killer as the guitar parts. That's the goal and challenge that awaits us. Ex-Axemaster drummer (and current drummer for the Disturbed tribute band STUPIFY), Denny Archer, has agreed to play session drums for the album and record his tracks using his personal studio (a professional setup designed specifically for recording drums). I worked with him on the 2 songs he's starting with and was blown away by what he came up with. He really got the "vibe" and "feel" of the songs perfectly. Denny and I have known each other almost our entire lives, I've played with him in 2 different bands, and heard him play with several other projects, and I've never heard him play quite like this: very heavy and intense in ways that are outside his normal wheelhouse. He's obviously putting a whole lot of time and effort into writing the best drum lines for us that he possibly can, so I want to give my brother a public and totally sincere THANK YOU for what he's doing and ask anyone out there from the N.E. Ohio area and the surrounding states to check out Stupify if you see that they are playing near you, a kick ass band with kick ass musicians!!!!! https://www.facebook.com/stupifydisturbedtribute Other than the drums, I will be recording, producing, mixing, and mastering the album entirely at my studio: Chamber Studios. And (like I need any more reasons to be excited about this project!), my studio has just gotten a huge facelift: a new studio computer (thanks to our singer Geoff McGraw) as well as upgraded multi-track and mastering software, all of which are HUGE upgrades over what I was previously using and will allow me to do things production-wise that I've never been able to do before. Lately a lot of people have been asking me when the new album is going to be out. Please remember, we are at just the very beginning of an EXTREMELY long, involved, and detailed process. There is a whole lot of time and work that must go into ALL the material before we get to the point to where we can send masters to Pure Steel Records to be printed. And I'm a perfectionist, I will not settle for a product that just sounds "okay". I'll put in whatever amount of time is necessary to make sure the sounds are RIGHT. Then once we send the masters to PS, it's totally out of our hands. Usually a good time frame is us having CDs in our hands somewhere around 4-6 months after sending out the masters. So we ask everyone to PLEASE BE PATIENT. We are definitely flattered that so many people are so anxious to hear new Axemaster ASAP, but we will not sacrifice quality to get the new CD out quicker. Your patience WILL be worth it, I PROMISE THIS TO ALL THE FANS! https://axemasterofficial.com/ https://www.facebook.com/axemasterofficial/