The Damned Things’s debut album Ironicast was arguably one of the best surprises to come out of 2010. Sure, a supergroup featuring members of Anthrax and Every Time I Die sounded promising. But many scratched their heads at the inclusion of Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley and guitarist Joe Trohman. However, what resulted was a kick ass hard rock album.
Now that we’re well into 2012, though, The Damned Things are understandably taking a break for the foreseeable future. However, Trohman revealed that he would be continuing to work with his The Damned Things bandmate Josh Newton in his project With Knives. The Fall Out Boy guitarist gave the following lengthy update via his blog:
“Just filling everyone in on what’s going on with myself and others are working on:
-The Damned Things are most likely not doing anything in 2012. As I’ve mentioned before ETID & Anthrax are very very busy touring their new records and I’d be surprised if anyone pushes for something TDT related this year. This is not to say there won’t be TDT again. I’m confident there will, as we all want to do it again. It just has to fit into everyone’s busy schedules. On top of that all, I’m also gearing up for something.
-Which now brings me to my next, and perhaps most exciting bit of news. Josh Newton, who played with The Damned Things with myself as well as various other rad bands (Every Time I Die, Shiner, Season To Risk to name a few), and I have started a new band called With Knives. With Knives began as a project Josh was working on on his own. When he joined TDT, he asked me to work on it with him, and so I did. It sounded a bit too realized to not turn it into an actual band. That’s what we’re doing with it.
Next month we will set out to Kansas City to record an EP. Then we will play shows and tour on this EP. We plan on putting it out ourselves using our Son Of Man thing as a record label. The plan is to release it as a 10” and download only, considering more people own and use a computer these days than a CD player. SOM will still be making and selling our weird shirts as well.
-And lastly, as I mentioned we plan on using Son Of Man as not just a way to unload some strange t-shirt designs, but also as a way to release music. There are a few other releases in the works that we plan on releasing via SOM, aside from the With Knives EP/10”. In general, the plan with SOM the whole time has been to turn it into a sort of artist collective. Hopefully we will be able to work with other artists and musicians to collaborate and release their stuff in a safe, DIY environment that doesn’t push them to do anything they don’t want to do.
Josh and I are really excited about the new band and continuing to work on Son Of Man. We’ve been slaves to the musical grind in our own respects and we both feel we can finally begin to work on something that feels like who we are, regardless if it’s met with open arms or not.”
Newton definitely has a little more time on his hands after recently departing Every Time I Die, while Trohman also is less busy as Fall Out Boy are still on hiatus. And while it’s too bad that it’ll likely be a while till The Damned Things work on a follow up album, it’s cool to see at least two members of the supergroup still collaborating on new music.
