{"id":731165,"date":"2026-08-08T05:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731165\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:24:22","slug":"sevendust-the-30-year-odyssey-towards-new-album-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731165\/","title":{"rendered":"Sevendust: The 30-Year odyssey towards new album One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sevendust singer Lajon Witherspoon<\/a> knew his band had made it when Ted Nugent<\/a> turned up at one of their gigs with a live buffalo in tow. It was New Year\u2019s Eve 1999, and the Atlanta five-piece were opening for Metallica<\/a> at Detroit\u2019s Pontiac Silverdome. The Nuge and fellow Motor City hero\/future MAGA pitchman Kid Rock were also on the bill, as was the snorting 800lb hunk of meat Ted had brought with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was crazy,\u201d Witherspoon says now, sitting in a dressing room beneath London\u2019s O2 with Sevendust drummer Morgan Rose a few hours before his band take the stage as support to Alter Bridge<\/a>. \u201cWe were in our bus and this truck pulled up. It was Ted Nugent and a big old buffalo. They had to reinforce the stage because he was gonna ride that buffalo on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That Metallica New Year\u2019s Eve show was the result of a whirlwind couple of years that had taken Sevendust from unknown local band to national contenders. Their coronation would be complete at the end of Metallica\u2019s set, when all four bands \u2013 Sevendust included \u2013 got on stage to jam on a cover of Kiss\u2019s Detroit Rock City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end, James Hetfield gives me his guitar,\u201d says Witherspoon. \u201cI do not know how to play guitar, but I was playing my heart out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have Sevendust spoken to any of the bands they shared the stage with that night since? Metallica, yes. Rock\u2019s leading right-wing wingnuts? Not so much.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUh-uh,\u201d says the singer, with a \u2018do you really have to ask?\u2019 look on his face. \u201cNot me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Lightning\n<\/p>\n

Sevendust are one of America\u2019s most resilient bands. They weren\u2019t as successful as contemporaries such as Limp Bizkit<\/a> and Creed, although a run of three gold albums on the bounce between 1997\u2019s self-titled debut and 2001\u2019s Animosity is nothing to be sniffed at. But their greatest achievement came afterwards \u2013 surviving the worst the music industry could throw at them. \u201cYeah, we\u2019ve had a few moments where it looked like it was game over,\u201d Rose says drily.<\/p>\n

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Atlanta wasn\u2019t exactly a hotbed of hard rock and heavy metal<\/a> in the mid-90s, but there were enough bands for Rose to cherry-pick musicians from to form Sevendust. As a teenager, the drummer had briefly been a member of local underground star and future Drag Race icon RuPaul\u2019s new-wave band Wee Wee Pole. \u201cI\u2019m such a blip in that machine he\u2019s run for the last forty years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Sevendust rehearsed and sometimes gigged in The Wreck Room. \u201cA rat-infested shithole,\u201d as Rose puts it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a strip club next door,\u201d Witherspoon adds. \u201cYou go in there you might not come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

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They bagged high-profile management in the shape of former Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, who also produced their self-titled debut album. That the union didn\u2019t last much beyond that record says much about the relationship.<\/p>\n

Sevendust sold exactly 311 copies the first week. But it sold more the week after, and more the week after that, until it sailed past half a million copies. They were road dogs, and feral on stage too \u2013 one band they supported, long-forgotten alt.rockers The Nixons, threatened to kick them off the tour for being too aggressive live. Sevendust found a place in the nu metal<\/a> scene, but even then they felt like outsiders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were cool kids from LA, we were hicks from Georgia,\u201d says Witherspoon. \u201cThey kind of ignored us a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were fuck-ups along the way, mostly from the people around the band. Such as the time their label, TVT, blocked a collaboration with Eminem<\/a>, who Sevendust had got to know on the 1999 Warped Tour, just as the rapper exploded. \u201cThey didn\u2019t think it was going to be a thing,\u201d says Rose, rolling his eyes.<\/p>\n

Still, things seemed good. They opened for Metallica and Limp Bizkit and hung out at TV shows with a pre-megastardom Beyonc\u00e9. They were one of the best live acts around, and their records consistently sold. But it all came crashing down in the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of money coming through,\u201d says Witherspoon, \u201cand we were making nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reasons are complicated and a legal minefield. The short version is that a succession of managers and accountants didn\u2019t necessarily have the band\u2019s best interests at heart.<\/p>\n

At one point they were so broke that they had to leave in the middle of a European tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re a week in and you hear: \u2018You\u2019ve lost seventy-five grand\u2019, it\u2019s bad,\u201d says Rose. \u201cWe had to leave cos we couldn\u2019t pay our rent back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, the band attempted to sue one of their ex-associates for mismanaging their money, only to end up having to pay them $40,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times we came close to going bankrupt,\u201d says Morgan. \u201cOne of the people who was stealing from us is now in jail for stealing for somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took nearly a decade, and a new manager, to pull themselves out of the hole. Even then, their trials weren\u2019t over. In 2022, Rose gave a podcast interview in which he said the band were planning to quit at some unspecified point in the not-too-distant future. \u201cOh, that was a real thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Today he admits that he and guitarist Clint Lowery were deadly serious about it. The pair were tired and frustrated that Sevendust seemed to be going in ever-decreasing circles. Tours had been confined to North America \u2013 their current European dates are their first in eight years, and their previous UK shows were nine years before that. They were ready to walk. The others?<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody else despised the idea,\u201d says Witherspoon. \u201cI stopped talking to him [Rose] for a while. I can tell you, if they\u2019d have done it, you\u2019d have seen a band called Threedust, cos we weren\u2019t giving up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The solution was to do what men of their age don\u2019t do: talk about it. They re-examined their friendship and everything they\u2019d been through. They emerged with new album, One, a record whose title underlines their rediscovered unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been tough – we\u2019ve been ripped off, we nearly went bankrupt,\u201d says Rose. \u201cWe survived what many people wouldn\u2019t have survived. I don\u2019t know how we did it, but out of everything we\u2019ve done, I\u2019m proudest of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

One is out now via Napalm Records. Sevendust are currently on tour in the US, and play the UK and Europe in November and December. For dates and tickets, check the Sevendust website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sevendust: One – Today’s Best Prices<\/p>\n

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