QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton recently sat down with Metal Edge magazine to discuss the band’s upcoming 16th studio album, “Digital Noise Alliance“.
The new QUEENSRŸCHE record is set to arrive on October 7 via Century Media Records and was produced by Chris “Zeuss” Harris.
“It’s an album that kind of stretches and encompasses the whole music genre of QUEENSRŸCHE,” Wilton said about the new LP. “It’s got some very melodic moments, it’s progressive, it’s heavy metal and it’s very album-oriented visual music that is going to be just a good all-around QUEENSRŸCHE album.”
Regarding the songwriting process for “Digital Noise Alliance“, Wilton said: “I was living in Seattle at the time, and when you’re isolated like that, it does weird things to your head space. I talked to Todd [La Torre, vocals] and mentioned that in all that time I had been writing lots of little riffs on the guitar. So, I went and visited Todd in Florida in late January of 2021. I had no idea he had also invited producer Zeuss to come down from Massachusetts, as I hadn’t brought along any guitars with me. I was just going to go hang out with Todd in Florida. But we then made a conscious decision between all of us that this album’s process would not be songs being e-mailed to each, waiting for their approval back. This was going to a process where on-the-spot riffage, experimentation, improvisation and seeing what sticks was the way we wanted it made. So, I’d come up with a riff and Zeuss would record it and Casey [Grillo, drums] would get on the electronic drums and put a drum beat to it, and we’d file it and move onto the next riff and so on. Then we would sit back and listen and if everybody was vibing on what we did during that day, we’d listen to all the parts and imagine where they would sit within a song structure and then kind of put them together from there. Eventually we had about 22 song ideas, and we had to wither that down to about 11 or 12 tunes.”
As for the lyrical themes within “Digital Noise Alliance“, Michael said: “A lot of the songs are our perspective on the current unrest in the world, especially in the United States, and whatever the music dictated to us for the lyrics. Todd writes great lyrics, as does Eddie [Jackson, bass], and I wrote some lyrics, too. I think as I said earlier, it’s a full, all-encompassing QUEENSRŸCHE record that I think everyone is going to really enjoy.”
— Queensrÿche (@queensryche) June 18, 2022