In addition to releasing a covers collection this year, AWOLNATION has been working on a new, original record. Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Aaron Bruno reveals that he's "pretty far along" on the upcoming effort.
"No one's heard any of it," Bruno says. "But where I am on it, it feels pretty far along."
As for when we might get to hear any of the fresh material, Bruno's hesitant to offer a firm date, but hopes to have something out before 2022 is over.
"Every time I think this or say something like this, it never comes true," Bruno says. "But if all goes according to how I have it in my head, I could see a single or a new song coming out hopefully by the fall or sometime before the end of the year, I would think. That's my goal, at least."
Bruno knows a thing or two about plans going awry. AWOL's last album, Angel Miners & the Lightning Riders, was released in April 2020, a month into the COVID-19 pandemic. The tour behind the record, which was to expand its conceptual world and cast of characters, was canceled.
"[The pandemic] just put a bulldozer through the creative aspect of the characters and what were going to be visuals and the story I was trying to tell," Bruno says. "I had to make peace with that, and that's OK. People are dealing with much bigger issues than that."
As for whether the Angel Miners follow-up will follow in its predecessor's conceptual footsteps, Bruno isn't sure yet.
"Right now it's just a group of songs more than it is an idea or a way to present the story," he says.
Meanwhile, AWOLNATION's My Echo, My Shadows, My Covers and Me compilation drops May 6.