Third Eye Blind 'Ursa Major' album

Waiting six years to release a new album would be career suicide for many bands, but Third Eye Blind is still very much alive. The band scored hits in the '90s and early part of this decade such as "Semi-Charmed Life," "Jumper," and "Never Let You Go." The band's last release came in 2003.

In a recent interview, 3eb's guitarist, Tony Fredianelli talked about the long-awaited band's new album, Ursa Major, which is set for release on August 18th via Mega Collider/RED Records. The single, Don't Believe A Word impacts Alternative on July 7th.

The band is then releasing a second newer album, Ursa Minor which will contain a collection of B-side songs not used on Ursa Major. Fredianelli says about Ursa Minor: "We are going to put it out on the heels [of Ursa Major], about six months later. It will have between 10 and 15 tracks."

Though the Ursa project took a long time to write, Fredianelli assures it's worth the wait: ""It's been frustrating, but what can you do? You have to get the inspiration, and finally its all come through. We were waiting a long time on Stephen to finish his lyrics, he's finally gotten inspired and its really coming together nice, I have a good feeling about this record." Fredianelli and lead singer Stephen Jenkins are chief songwriters for the band.

"It's an amalgam of different sounds," Fredianelli said. "There's metal, there's punk rock, there's pop - it's all melded together. It's little bits and pieces of all those. There's a lot of '60s, Who-ish sounding songs, from my angle." Fredianelli said his songs tend to have more of a rock edge, as opposed to songs penned by Jenkins. "He tends to write more pop," Fredianelli said. "He writes some rock and I write some pop, but we usually fit into those areas. I am a guitar player. He's more of a songwriter."

Fredianelli said one of the ways Third Eye Blind is trying to return to their roots is by playing smaller, more intimate venues.

"We've working on really getting back to our core base touring a lot of colleges and universities," said Fredianelli. "We're trying to get back to our roots and disconnect ourselves with the big media machine that Electric [Records] created for us." The band is excited to be playing new music and getting back into the business as a producing band, rather than playing the same music that they have been for years.

"We're taking a bite back of the apple and coming back into consciousness of people and society in general. We've been hibernating like a bear and he's coming out from winter ready to rock," Fredianelli said.

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Third Eye Blind - Ursa Major