SPILL FEATURE: LAST NIGHT ON EARTH – A CONVERSATION WITH FINGER ELEVEN’S SCOTT ANDERSON

LAST NIGHT ON EARTH

A CONVERSATION WITH FINGER ELEVEN’S SCOTT ANDERSON

On November 7^th, Finger Eleven are set to mark their return with the long-awaited release of Last Night On Earth, their first studio album in a decade. While the Canadian rock veterans have remained very active in that time on the road, along with the release of 2023’s Greatest Hits and various singles, the band has not released an original album since 2015’s Five Crooked Lines. Speaking on the delay, lead vocalist Scott Anderson discusses the writing and production behind their upcoming album.

“I can’t believe it took this long, but I’m glad we finally figured out how to put a record together” Anderson states, adding, “The band did not, and still does not, work well remotely. It’s still about a bunch of guys getting into a room and hashing out ideas.” One of the factors behind the ten-year gap between records is purely logistical, “Everyone’s in a different place. We used to be a bunch of dudes in high school trying to make music, and now we’re a bunch of dads with families” Anderson explains. The second, was the meticulous process the band put into writing, recording, and producing a full-length album. Despite the growing popularity of singles and EPs within the age of streaming, the band was set on making their return with an album. As Anderson puts it, “There’s nothing cooler than the full record. It’s the format we fell in love with. As kids, we’d all go to the record stores, spend our money, listen to it front to back, and love it or listen to it until we loved it. It’s such a different world now. You can put a single out or an EP, but our favourite stuff, the stuff we love, is on a full record.”

“There wasn’t any hiatus. We had all the time in the world until we didn’t,” Anderson tells me. Without a deadline, Finger Eleven embarked on a creative process unlike anything they’ve ever done. Anderson explains, “There was this refining process until we served each idea as best we could.” He continues, “We basically wrote constantly and refined the ideas. What’s been really great with this record is that we used Steve Molella as our producer, who is our drummer and has been our drummer for the past 10  years. There is such a shorthand and a comfort, that dynamic has been very beneficial to the whole band.” Anderson praises Molella’s level of musicality, particularly in crafting different harmonies, adding “He’s not heavy handed, which is very important to a singer especially. You’re pretty vulnerable as you try to put these lyrics together and these ideas… If you don’t have someone behind the glass who you really trust, it can be a nightmare. Steve is just very good at getting the best out of me.”

LAST NIGHT ON EARTH ALBUM REVIEW

Molella’s role as a producer has allowed for the band to explore each track fully. “He was able to steer the ship in meaningful ways anytime anyone wanted to go too off course.” As a result, Last Night On Earth feels incredibly developed, showcasing not only the band’s performance, but their songwriting. Using the title track as an example for the process behind the album, Anderson recalls “We had this idea called “Last Night On Earth”, and it was like ‘it’s nifty, kinda cool, but what if it had an amazing chorus in there? Is this part a chorus? Can we put another chorus in there? Wow this is a massive headache, how do we do that.’ And you do that for every single part… You run that through each song like 10 times and try to please five masters. It takes a while.” This is further seen in Anderson’s favourite track on the record, “Lock Me Up.” “I don’t know if the actual demo will ever see the light of day, but it is a radically different song… It was slightly funky; the verse was very odd… We took a B-side, in my opinion, and turned it into a killer song.” The album also features a collaboration with Filter’s Richard Patrick on “Blue Sky Mystery.” As Anderson puts it, “Finger Eleven kind of stepped out of its comfort zone and it worked out really well.” Elaborating, he continues “He’s so excited about his new musical projects. I love that, when you have some history behind you, but you’re still excited by the new stuff… He did a remote session with Steve and that went really really well… He nailed that.”

With a laugh, Anderson states, “Do I understand why Axl Rose sat in the studio for years? Yeah, I do. I totally get it.” While he regrets that it took the band a decade to create their latest album, he could not be happier with the results. As the band is set to take the stage, closing out a massive year with The Headstones and The Tea Party on a cross-Canada tour, Anderson is eager to try out the new material on the road, “You’re gonna be able to sing along to about 80% of it, and then 20% that will hit you just the right way. ‘The Mountain’ has just got these unstoppable riffs. That’s exciting. We’ll be playing that one live for the first time on this tour… When you hear a band play their new stuff, you’re going to hear an invigorated band.” His excitement is tangible as Finger Eleven truly sounds invigorated on Last Night On Earth, a versatile, hard-hitting record that marks the return of one of Canada’s most prominent bands of the last two decades.

Listen to the full, unabridged conversation with Scott Anderson, including a more in-depth look at the making of Last Night On Earth, working with Richard Patrick, and his desert island records on episode 53 of Beats By Ger on Spotify and YouTube.

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Photo Credit: Myles Erfurth