Lifehouse's upcoming seventh album Out of the Wasteland didn't start life as a band project.
The album, due out May 26, emerged after a two-year hiatus that frontman Jason Wade tells Billboard "was kind of paramount for us." During that time he started working on songs for what he expected to be a solo outing, but he wound up deciding otherwise.
"I think for the first year and a half I thought I was making a solo album until I realized that just wasn't what I wanted to do," Wade recalls. "When I got close to making this alt/country record, the idea of starting over with a new band seemed like a terrible idea. At 34, I've spent my whole life with these guys (in Lifehouse) and they're family. And some of the stuff I was writing sounded so much like Lifehouse it didn't make any sense to do as (a solo album), either."
That led to the realization that it was an opportunity for Lifehouse to record an album. "I think once we had some time to just take off and get some clarity it seemed like a great time to bring everybody back together and everybody was in a good head space, too," Wade explains. "We really needed to recharge; we hit the road so hard for 12, 13 years, so by the time of our last album, Almeria (in 2012), we were kind of burnt out. It made sense for us to just kind of unplug and take a hiatus for awhile."
The album, due out May 26, emerged after a two-year hiatus that frontman Jason Wade tells Billboard "was kind of paramount for us." During that time he started working on songs for what he expected to be a solo outing, but he wound up deciding otherwise.
"I think for the first year and a half I thought I was making a solo album until I realized that just wasn't what I wanted to do," Wade recalls. "When I got close to making this alt/country record, the idea of starting over with a new band seemed like a terrible idea. At 34, I've spent my whole life with these guys (in Lifehouse) and they're family. And some of the stuff I was writing sounded so much like Lifehouse it didn't make any sense to do as (a solo album), either."
That led to the realization that it was an opportunity for Lifehouse to record an album. "I think once we had some time to just take off and get some clarity it seemed like a great time to bring everybody back together and everybody was in a good head space, too," Wade explains. "We really needed to recharge; we hit the road so hard for 12, 13 years, so by the time of our last album, Almeria (in 2012), we were kind of burnt out. It made sense for us to just kind of unplug and take a hiatus for awhile."