Kentucky bred post-hardcore band XERXES has officially entered the studio today to record their sophomore album, which will be released later this year from No Sleep Records.
Xerxes is currently recording the new album at Missed Connections studios in their hometown of Louisville, KY with Evan Weiss (of Into It. Over It.) producing and the band’s guitarist Will Allard, who’s previously worked in the studio with Coliseum, Whips/Chains and Black God, engineering.
“Evan has been one of our very best friends pretty much since the beginning,” says Calvin Philley. “We met him for a weekend with Former Thieves years ago in the midwest when he was touring with an acoustic guitar and copies of “52 Weeks.” I was just in Chicago for a weekend and over a bottle of cheap whiskey and an impromptu homemade dinner, we were talking music and he volunteered to do this record with us before I even asked. Truth be told, it came together in a way I could never have imagined.”
Inspired by an abundance of overwhelming escapades on the road over the last several years and a serious bout of introspection, Xerxes enters the next phase of their career by embracing the unknown and channeling their experiences through an onslaught of new music.
“We are often reminded by those older than us just how young Xerxes is,” Philley adds. “For us, I think it feels like we’ve been doing this forever. We’ve seen so much, been through so much in so little time. An abandoned airfield in the Czech Republic, a neo-nazi knife fight in Iowa, a cardboard box with a hundred free, day-old hotdogs in Florida, Motorhead in Idaho on the fourth of July, our assorted breakups and hookups and strikeouts along the way. All the way feeling out of place, missing a necessary catharsis, leaving an indefinable longing unsatisfied. At a point, I think we came home and said “what comes next?” With the uncertainty of a quarter-life crisis came the horror of progression and the realization of necessary change. In truth it’s all been too much. Where I sit and type this right now, I don’t have the answer except for a few songs that are different than anything we’ve ever done before, the rest remains to be seen.”
Tour Dates:
April 18 – Chicago, IL – TBA (w/Cloakroom)
April 19 – Ann Arbor, MI – 907 Lincoln Ave. (w/Cloakroom, Pity Sex)
April 20 – Indianapolis, IN – Westgate (w/Cloakroom)
