Taproot are in the middle of recording a new album -- tentatively titled "Welcome" -- to be released in late August or September. But don't expect the same old rap-core: Singer Stephen Richards insists this time's going to be different.

"We've changed a lot since we wrote the last album," says Richards, who founded the band in 1997 with his childhood friend and guitarist Michael DeWolf and two college friends, bassist Philip Lipscomb and drummer Jarrod Montague. "It's funny, but if you asked me two years ago who my least favorite band in the world was, it would have been Pink Floyd, but right now they're just about all I'm listening to, and Bowie. All the songs are heavy on content and really take you on a journey. We're just more into melodic stuff. And that will be reflected in the record . . . I mean, people will be able to tell it's Taproot, but this album's a lot more creative and probably a lot more enjoyable."

Richards admits that the pressure of getting 2000's Gift out in time for that year's Ozzfest tour rushed the production process -- a mistake the band's determined not to make again. "This time we've spent six months, eight hours a day every day working hard on the record and making sure everything's ready to go," he says. "And we've only been recording for two weeks, so we probably have four or six more ahead to make sure we get it right."

The band went into the sessions with thirty songs written and ready for pre-production, but producer Toby Wright pared the thirty down to . . . four. "And he had us write fifteen more," Richards says. "But it was actually really great. He saw a lot of similarities between songs that we had written -- a lot of one-dimensional writing -- and just suggested that we take the best parts of each and cut them down and combine them and make them better. So we took some of the good old stuff and reworked into better songs, and some of the newer stuff is actually the material we're most excited about."

Richards also thinks that people may finally over be his band's infamous answering-machine tiff with Fred Durst. (When Taproot didn't sign to Interscope Records, after extended negotiations, Durst left angry messages on Richards' answering machine. An audio file of the message later made it onto the Internet.) The incident cast a pall on the last album: "For a while it had a positive effect," Richards says. "The kids were like, 'Fuck Fred! We totally respect you guys for doing that.' But at the same time, that was kind of the only reason people knew about us -- it kind of put a negative feeling on our band. So in some ways this is going to be our first record as an experienced band with total creative control."

Taproot will probably avoid the festival circuit this summer in favor of some smaller club gigs. "We haven't played a show in seven months," Richards says, "so we're going to head out and get our feet wet again, and then come fall we'll hop on a bigger tour. It will just be nice to do our own thing for awhile."

AUGUSTIN K. SEDGEWICK
(March 6, 2002)