Aussie rock icons Powderfinger have made the shock announcement that they have a full album of unheard material ready to be released this year.
The sensational news dropped during an interview with Double J‘s Caz Tran, who was chatting with the band about the 20th anniversary of their seminal album Odyssey Number Five.
Guitarist Darren Middleton and drummer Jon Coghill revealed they had been going through some of their unreleased material recorded down the years, and have decided to use it to release a new Powderfinger album.
It all started when they were putting together the re-issue of Odyssey Number Five.
“We were in putting together Odyssey Number Five 20th anniversary release and we went back and found like 50 songs that we had never released,” said Coghill.
“And we’ve got the 10 best, we think. “There’s gonna be a new album this year at some stage. New songs. No one’s heard any of them.
“And it sounds pretty good to us. It’s been put together really well.”
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Middleton revealed that it was only when they came across some of the material they’d previously shelved, that the band realised and remembered how good some of it was.
“We trawled through our hard drives and went, ‘This is actually a pretty good bunch of songs here,'” he said.
“‘Maybe we should do more than just put them out as extras. Maybe we should do something with it. See if anyone’s interested in listening’.”
The tracks on the upcoming record were recorded as far back as 1998, the pair revealed.
“It’s funny, I was telling a friend of mine about it. ‘We might have a new album coming out’,” said Middleton.
“He’s like, ‘What? You recorded some stuff now?’ I said, ‘No, it’s from back when we were kind of cutting it, you know, when we were hitting our straps’. He’s like, ‘This is gonna be great’.”
The first song, titled ‘Day By Day’ will be released on Friday, September 18.
Earlier this week Powderfinger announced they are bringing out an Odyssey Number Five colouring sheet.
“While dad’s in the garage blasting Odyssey Number Five, the little ones can entertain themselves with a colouring in sheet,” they said.
Check out ‘My Happiness’ by Powderfinger:
