“MUSIC HAS LOST a lot of mystery now with YouTube and the internet,” argues Life of Agony guitarist Joey Zampella, aka Joey Z. “At one time, the only way you knew what a band was like was to see them yourself or buy the home video. What got you excited was the mystery. The newer generation has lost that, and music has lost its value. People will spend $15 on a lunch that lasts half an hour, but they wouldn’t spend that on an album that will last them a lifetime. The value of music has to return — or else there’ll be no music business.”
Life of Agony’s Joey Z and his Flying V (with Bare Knuckle Black Dog pickups)
Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that the band’s scorching new album, The Sound of Scars, finds them reconnecting with another era: their early days, and — more specifically — their game-changing 1993 debut LP, River Runs Red, a concept album about a troubled teenager’s inability to cope with what seemed to be the worst week of his life. The Sound of Scars serves as a “chapter two” to the River Runs Red saga. “We really went back to our roots on this one and tapped into the mindset we had when we first started the band,” Zampella says.