Mississippi rock band 3 DOORS DOWN has recorded a new song called “Wicked Man”, with plans to release it by the end of July.
“Wicked Man” marks the first new music from 3 DOORS DOWN since the arrival of the band’s sixth full-length album, “Us And The Night”, which came out in March 2016 via Republic Records.
3 DOORS DOWN frontman Brad Arnold spoke about the new track during an interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station. He said: “Greg [Upchurch], our drummer, he sent me a guitar part not long ago… And a line came into my head of just about the idea of… It’s not a song that’s meant to be political or anything like that, it’s just that we can all see, with everything going on in the world right now, that there are some hands at work that don’t necessarily have the common man and woman’s best interests in mind. And that idea has kind of been in my head for a little while, and I think that a lot of people kind of feel the same way.”
The singer, who currently resides in Nashville, continued: “I just wrote these lyrics down. They weren’t hard to write. They’re kind of simple, but they say a lot — to me. And they just went right along with that guitar part that Greg wrote. And I said, ‘I just wanna record this song.’ ‘Cause we have a little studio — nothing fancy. But you don’t need a fancy studio to make music. So we went up there. And I said, ‘Man, I just wanna record it and put it out.’ I wanna put it out in a week. It’s really simple anyway — it’s just a guitar, a vocal, and we’re getting a guy to put a cello part on it. There’s just really gonna be, like, three parts.”
According to Arnold, “Wicked Man” is a track that a lot of people will be able to relate to.
“It kind of makes you wanna get up and dance, but it’s a song that you can listen to and be, like, ‘Damn, man. I get what he’s saying right there,'” he explained. “So I’m excited for people to hear it. I think we’re just gonna put it out. The dude that engineered it is a friend of ours, and he mixed it. And we’re just gonna try to make maybe a really quick little lyric video of it and just put out a song. I just want people to hear it.”
Brad went on to say that he doesn’t necessarily have high expectations for “Wicked Man”‘s commercial success, explaining: “By the grace of God, I can say that we do this because we love it, not because we need to. So I don’t care if it’s a hit — I just want people to hear it. And that’s how I love to look at music lately — I just wanna write something that somebody will be, like, ‘Yeah, man.’ Not to mention this is the first stinkin’ new song that we’ve recorded in five years. [Laughs]”
Back in January 2017, Arnold defended 3 DOORS DOWN‘s decision to perform at then-President-elect Donald Trump‘s “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration”, saying that “it’s all about America.”