"They've been writing songs for well over a year," Ruston tells Metal Insider. "I sat in and helped them record the demos and basically made sure everything was heading in the right direction. Once we hit the point to where they felt they were ready to go, around Thanksgiving, we decided it was time to get going."

"We have 18 songs we're working with that made the cut," he continues. "We're going to try to record everything just to see what turns out the best. Out of those 18 songs, we've got 8 that we're working on."