Boston To Wrap New Album After Summer Tour

Boston leader Tom Scholz tells Billboard.com he hopes to finish recording the band's next studio album after its summer tour and have it out "just after the first of the year."

Scholz says the album -- Boston's first since 2002's "Corporate America" -- is a mix of "really straightforward rock 'n' roll songs and some things that are pretty esoteric.

"When I first started," he continues, "I was doing music that had pretty simple themes. Then as I got into 'Third Stage' and 'Walk On' I got a little more technical and a little more involved, more complicated. In this one I'm trying to do both."

The new album will also include several songs from "Corporate America" that Scholz is remixing, rearranging and, in some cases, completely re-recording -- including the title track, "You Gave Up on Love" and "Someone."

"'Corporate America' was a really poor seller," Scholz acknowledges. "Very few people have heard it. I'd like to give some of these songs another chance to be heard."

Brad Delp, whose 2007 suicide "completely derailed" Scholz, appears on a couple of tracks on the new album.

Scholz says he felt "very weird" about playing Boston music without Delp at a tribute show last August, but has grown more comfortable with the idea during rehearsals for the summer tour with former Stryper singer Michael Sweet and Tommy DeCarlo, a fan Scholz discovered via a Delp tribute DeCarlo posted to YouTube.

"Brad was the most amazing musician [and] singer I've ever known. There's nobody on the face of this Earth that could replace him and do what he did," Scholz says. "But I have to say that these two guys, Michael and Tommy, do a really impressive job of performing these songs live.

"So it seemed wrong not to take it back out, and there were an awful lot of people out there that don't want to hear Boston go away," he adds.

Boston's tour kicks off June 6 in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Scholz has prepared a revised version of the group's "Greatest Hits" album to coincide with the tour.

Thanks for the info to Billboard.com.

Comments

[jackjohnson69]

old.....

[radioplay]

cool,im pumped. Even though Corporate America sucked greatly,as did most of their albums except the first one.But theyre still one of my favorite bands because of it!

[radioplay]

Cool im pumped, even though Corporate America sucked greatly.All of em did except the first one, but theyre still one of my favorite bands because of it!

[radioplay]

meh,double post

[Gunpowder]

Dunno if I'll check it out, even though I have everything else by Boston. I don't think they'll be able to recover from losing Delp, he was such a key part of their sound.

[Spay]

Well, off their comp album I really loved their completely instrumental version of the Nation Anthem. He's a very talented guitarist, I think I'll give them a chance, although I agree that it won't be the same without Delp. RIP

[AlexPotichnyj]

Brad Delp was a musical genius and we all know that. It's just the stuff he wrote and the stuff Scholz wrote, it doesn't compare with killer instrumentals like "The Launch" off of "Third Stage". Or killer tracks such as Foreplay/ Long Time, Hitch a Ride(with one of the most influential guitar solos for me ever) , or More Than a Feeling (all written and recorded by Scholz, mind you) were a token to Scholz's genius, Boston is #1 and i admit it won't be the same and it shouldn't be. This is a very Queen + Paul Rodgers kinda thing either you're gonna love it or you're going to kill you're puppy because you hate it so much. Really i've seen video's live of DeCarlo and Sweet, they do justice to Delp. And another thing... Feelin' Satisfied - Don't Look Back is like the greatest hard rock song of all time.