Photo: Walter/Getty
Although their still-untitled second album is being recorded in a gritty, super-urban part of Brooklyn, Vampire Weekend say the record has a sunny vibe befitting locales far different than the outer borough of New York. “These songs would be perfect for driving up the Pacific coast,” guitarist-keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij tells RS in our new issue, on stands now. Singer Ezra Koenig adds, “Or making an egg-white omelet. Basically, doing fresh things.”

Rolling Stone visited the band at Brooklyn’s Treefort Studios, where they’ve been nestled since January, just before they hit the booth to record some group clapping, which Koenig notes could really fit on any of the record’s crisp, bright songs. “We’re taking what we did on the first album to the next level,” Koenig says. As on their self-titled debut, Afropop influences (this time more developed) reappear and Batmanglij is once again in the producer’s chair. So what’s different this time around? The band says they’re able to concentrate on the music more. “When we wrote the first album, we all had jobs,” bassist Chris Baio says. “This time, we’re way more focused.” The result: lyrical reference to highbrow and lowbrow topics including a trip to New York’s Museum of Modern Art. (more…)

Photo:KanyeUnivercity.com

Kanye West has recorded with hip-hop colleagues (Jay-Z, Nas, Common, Lil Wayne) and rock contemporaries (Maroon 5’s Adam Levine Coldplay’s Chris Martin) and shared the spotlight with the Police, John Mayer and even country sweetheart Taylor Swift. So, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when the Louis Vuitton Don updated his blog last week with a photo from the studio featuring 30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto and the Killers’ Brandon Flowers. In the post, West explained he was “working on this dope-ass song with Jared” when Flowers just stopped by the studio.

According to Leto, the image was taken earlier in the week, during a recording session with West in Hawaii, where the rapper is working “his ass off on a number of projects.” Leto says the pair were working on “Hurricane,” a track for 30 Seconds to Mars’ upcoming LP, which is being helmed by British post-punk producer Flood and should surface before the end of the year. 30STM has been working on the effort, which has been given the working title This Is War in a house in the Hollywood Hills for the last year.

“The fact that it’s slightly more than unexpected makes it really interesting to us,” Leto told Rolling Stone. “This record is like nothing we’ve done before. It’s like listening to a film. It’s very atmospheric. (more…)

Rolling Stone’s Steve Appleford recently stepped into a California studio with Slayer to watch the thrash-metal vets assemble their 10th studio album. The record — executive produced by Reign in Blood producer Rick Rubin, and produced by Greg Fidelman — is the band’s second with its reunited original lineup, and promises blinding speed and brutal rage. Check out our report straight from the studio, where the band tested out one of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott’s old guitars and mused on how their fanbase has changed over their 30-year career:

• Slayer in the Studio: Loud, Fast and Ready to Thrash

Photo: Kempoin/Getty

The members of Canadian power-pop crew the New Pornographers are keeping plenty busy these days. Singer-guitarist Carl “A.C.” Newman will release his second solo album, Get Guilty, on January 20th. And in March, singer Neko Case will put out her latest set of country-pop tunes. Titled Middle Cyclone, the disc features an all-star crew of guests including the Band’s Garth Hudson, M. Ward and many of her New Pornographers bandmates, in addition to her five-piece backing band. “Whenever I’d hear a musician was in town, I’d be like ‘Get ‘em down here!’ ” says Case.

Case also tells Rolling Stone that the New Pornographers are prepping their follow-up to last year’s Challengers. (more…)

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• Following their October 17th Obama benefit in Akron, Ohio, Devo are working on their first album of new material since 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps. “We have about 17 songs we’re testing out,” says frontman Mark Mothersbaugh. “We’ve already been contacted by 20 producers — including Snoop Dogg and Fatboy Slim.”

• Denver piano-pop group the Fray have finished their follow-up to their 2005 breakthrough smash, How to Save a Life. The new album — called The Fray and due out February 3rd — was recorded in their hometown and in Northern California with Mike Flynn and Aaron Johnson, who co-produced their first album. (more…)

Photo: B. Hellier

Before Depeche Mode began recording their new album, the group’s guitarist and chief songwriter, Martin Gore, went out and bought a bunch of vintage gear. “It’s helped to shape the sound of the album,” says Gore. “The sounds we are making are more akin to stuff we did in the late 1980s, around Violator. That was a real creative high for us.” The group has been recording off and on for nine months in New York and in a studio near Gore’s Santa Barbara, California, home. On its last release, 2005’s Playing the Angel, singer Dave Gahan contributed songs for the first time in Depeche Mode’s 25-year career. So far, he’s given four new songs to this currently untitled set. “I think it’s natural,” says Gore — who was the group’s sole songwriter for most of its career. (more…)

Photo: Alicia J. Rose

Everyone’s going to call it a rock opera,” says the Decemberists‘ frontman, Colin Meloy. “I’ve just got to come around to that.” Meloy is in the midst of mixing the band’s fifth album, Hazards of Love, at an Oregon City studio. It’s very different from the Decemberists’ 2006 major-label debut, The Crane Wife: Producer Tucker Martine is piecing together 16 or so segments into a continuous, hour-long narrative suite that riffs on folk-song archetypes. It’s a twisty, fantastical story about a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William, who is desperate for the two of them to be reunited; a forest queen; and a villainous rake. “There’s a story there, but it’s really painted with broad strokes,” says Meloy.

At first, Hazards of Love was going to be an actual musical, staged by director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening). (more…)

Photo: Lionel Deluy

Last year, 50 Cent went up against Kanye West, and lost. Both rappers released albums on September 11th, 2007, and while West’s sold 950,000 copies its first week, 50’s moved about 250,000 units less. Looking back, 50 says, “If I could change anything, I’d change the timing that I released it. But together we created the largest-selling week for hip-hop music.”

The two won’t be going head-to-head again: West’s 808s & Heartbreak is slated for November 25th, and 50’s Before I Self Destruct will be out early next year. Compared to 2007’s R&B-heavy Curtis — which featured Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige and Robin Thicke — 50’s fourth LP is more stripped-down, with fewer guest spots. “It’s darker,” he says. “It has the essence of [his debut] Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It’s authentic with harsh realities.” (more…)

Rock Daily recently visited the Manhattan recording studio where Taking Back Sunday are finishing up their fourth LP — the Long Island group’s first with new guitarist Matt Fazzi. Though they’re known for their emo-leaning lyrics and sound (see their last huge single, “MakeDamnSure” from 2006’s Louder Now), Fazzi and lead singer Adam Lazzara say TBS are consciously pushing out of its comfort zone for this record by doing things like incorporating bassist Matt Rubano’s vocals for the first time.

“I think a lot of people who hear the record will recognize the songwriting has grown a lot, but we haven’t lost any of that fire that a Taking Back Sunday fan loves about the band,” Lazzara explains. He credits Fazzi’s addition (the band’s fourth lineup change) with creating an excitement the band hasn’t felt since their first record, inspiring the upcoming album to be called New Again.

Click above to watch Fazzi and Lazzara talk about recording the album (which is slated for release early next year) as well as their attempts to secure a Paul McCartney cameo and their possible future career on crazy kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba.

[Video: Pete Maiden]

Photo: Josh Rothstein

Earlier this year, Franz Ferdinand offered an online preview of a new song called “Lucid Dreams” — its danceable beat and crunchy guitars suggested that the Scottish foursome’s third album wouldn’t wander far from their established sound. But that was a fake-out: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is an aggressive left turn for the band, full of synths, drum machines and psychedelic production. And the eight-minute-long final version of “Lucid Dreams” is radically different from that preview, with buzzy analog keyboards, spooky background vocals and an electro-tribal groove that’s half electronic, half live drums. “We took a little bit of time to evolve,” says frontman Alex Kapranos, fresh from mixing the disc. The band recorded it at a leisurely pace over 18 months, mostly in a studio constructed in a rundown Glasgow building. “We’d record one song five different ways, which is where the luxury of time comes in.”

Kapranos had previously declared Tonight, recorded with Lily Allen producer Dan Carey, to be a “dance album,” but he’d like to retract that. (more…)

Wilco have already recorded demos for a new album and are heading into their Chicago studio, the Loft, this month to start rerecording and fleshing them out. “Sonically it’s going to be a much wilder, much more unexpected record,” says guitarist Nels Cline. “There’s going to be too much to choose from. Right now it’s an embarrassment of riches, for sure.”

Later this month, Band of Horses will begin work on their third album at Alabama’s famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. (more…)

Photo: Brian David

While American Idol winner David Cook admits he enjoyed playing with people’s expectations and consciously threw curveballs on the show, his upcoming album is all business. “I just want the songs to kick you in the teeth or make you want to cry — or do something drastic, like jump off a building,” says Cook. “I want somebody to be exhausted when they’re done listening.” Click below for more on Cook’s upcoming album, including what he learned from producer Rob Cavallo and why he had such a small window to finish the record.

• In the Studio: David Cook Crafts the Heaviest American Idol Album Yet

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• David Cook Picks Chris Cornell Song as First Single

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• Video: Behind the Scenes With David Cook

Confirming what Garbage’s Shirley Manson let slip last week, Green Day posted a video proving they are in the studio working with producer Butch Vig. In the above clip, which was posted on Green Day’s official YouTube page, Billie Joe Armstrong strums some chords on his guitar before the camera slowly pans over to Vig, who greets the camera with his middle finger. (more…)

Photo: Sacha Lecha

Album Sir Lucious Leftfoot: Son of Chico Dusty
Due Out November

Outkast’s Big Boi has been working on his solo debut since 2007, recording mostly in Atlanta and pulling in guests like Raekwon and George Clinton. The result is a freewheeling record with funky electro beats by Big Boi and Organized Noize. On some of the densest rhymes of his career, Big Boi addresses everything from passionate sex (”Backup Plan”) to fears he felt during the primaries (”Daddy Fat Sacks”). The political theme continues on the first single, “Something’s Gotta Give,” where he and Mary J. Blige plug for Obama. The song has piqued the interest of Obama’s camp. “There have been calls from them,” Big Boi says. “I don’t know what I’ll do, but they want me to be a part of what they’re doing.”

[From Issue 1063 — October 16, 2008]

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• Outkast’s Andre Benjamin Says New Solo Album Coming Soon

• Big Boi’s Ballet Debuts

• Outkast: Funk Soul Brothers

Photo: Arik Garcia

After a tumultuous five-year stint in Velvet Revolver, Scott Weiland finally gets to let loose on his new solo album. “There’s no rules,” he says. “I don’t have to worry about radio playing it.” He also doesn’t have to worry about the approval of Slash, Duff and Matt Sorum — which has given him the room to craft a two-disc album about his volatile relationship with his wife, Mary. In 2001, he was arrested for domestic violence, and in 2007, she was arrested for torching $10,000 worth of his clothing — just hours after the two were kicked out of a hotel for brawling in a room. “I liken it to [Marvin Gaye’s] ‘I Met a Little Girl,’ ” Weiland says. “It chronicles our life.”

Weiland has been working on the project in spurts over the past decade with his longtime creative partner, Doug Grean, who co-wrote and produced the album. (more…)