Cage the Elephant have announced their sixth studio album, Neon Pill. The follow-up to 2019’s Social Cues is set to arrive on May 17 via Columbia. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Out Loud’, which follows the previously shared title track. Check it out below.
Produced by John Hill, the new album came together during sessions at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Electric Lady in New York, Sound Emporium in Nashville, Echo Mountain in North Carolina, and Hill’s studio in Los Angeles. “To me, Neon Pill is the first record where we were consistently uninfluenced, and I mean that in a positive way,” singer Matthew Shultz said in a press release. “Everything is undoubtedly expressed through having settled into finding our own voice. We’ve always drawn inspiration from artists we love, and at times we’ve even emulated some of them to a certain degree. With this album, having gone through so much, life had almost forced us into becoming more and more comfortable with ourselves. We weren’t reaching for much outside of the pure experience of self expression, and simultaneously not necessarily settling either. We just found a uniqueness in simply existing.”
“‘Out Loud’ is very connected to my father,” Shultz added. “My dad’s the reason we discovered music in the first place. When he died, ‘Out Loud’ just poured out of me. My efforts towards the song were deeply rooted in paying honor to him, and I knew it meant a lot to Brad too. That, also in connection with the difficulties that I was dealing with at that time. It was almost a subconscious apology of sorts before I was fully capable of grasping the gravity of it all. Subconsciously working through it while channeling all of the adversity my family faced growing up coming full circle into my adult life in this one song.”
Earlier this week, Schultz revealed that he endured a “mental health crisis” leading up to his arrest last year for possession of two loaded guns. “It’s a miracle that I’m here today,” he wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “I was arrested last year, and it undoubtedly saved my life. After my arrest, I went to the hospital for two months followed by months of outpatient treatment. I can finally explain what happened.”
“Over the last three years, I was unknowingly fighting my way through an utter mental health crisis,” Schultz continued. “In a short time, I had slipped into psychosis due to an iatrogenic response to a medication I was prescribed. It took the love and support of my brothers in the band, my community, and, most of all, my wife Eva to get me through it.”
Neon Pill Cover Artwork:
