THE PRETTY RECKLESS frontwoman Taylor Momsen spoke to Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station about the band’s upcoming album, “Death By Rock And Roll”, which will be made available on February 12 via Fearless Records in the U.S. and Century Media Records in the rest of the world. Asked if it’s true that the LP was completed before THE PRETTY RECKLESS even signed with the two record companies that are releasing the effort, Taylor said (see video below): “Yes — yes and no. I don’t know how to exactly get into this. I’m very controlling, for lack of a better word, when it comes to the artistic side of things. I make music for myself, and I don’t like people in my ear telling me what I can or can’t do, or have to change. So I like to make the art, and then release it. So I deal in licensing deals, where I can maintain creative control. And as far as the releasing of things, that side of it is a business, but making the art — that has to be mine. So I make it and then see who’s interested. [Laughs]”
THE PRETTY RECKLESS‘s latest single “And So It Went”. features a guest appearance by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello.
“Death By Rock And Roll” is THE PRETTY RECKLESS‘s first album to be made without longtime producer Kato Khandwala, who died in April 2018 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
In addition to Morello, “Death By Rock And Roll” features Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron from SOUNDGARDEN. The song with Cameron and Thayil, called “Only Love Can Save Me Now”, was recorded at Seattle’s legendary London Bridge Studios, where seminal LPs like PEARL JAM‘s “Ten” and SOUNDGARDEN‘s “Louder Than Love” were laid down.
Momsen told Forbes about “Death By Rock And Roll”: “We worked really hard on this album and we went through a lot of loss, a lot of tragedy, and we really poured our hearts and souls into it and in a way I can’t express verbally. It’s all there in the music, so that’s why I say it feels like a rebirth. It almost feels like the first record in a sense, because we really had to go back to the beginning after losing Kato, our producer. I’m just really excited for people to hear it because, in my opinion, it’s the best album we’ve ever made so it’s hard to sit on this music.”