In a recent conversation with Matt Bingham of the Z93 radio station, Great White guitarist and keyboardist Michael Lardie confirmed that the band is working on new material with their latest vocalist, Brett Carlisle. Carlisle officially joined the group in October 2022, stepping in to replace Andrew Freeman of Last In Line, who had a short five-month tenure with Great White.
Talking about the impact of bringing new energy into a band that’s been active for over four decades, Lardie shared: “Oh, it’s great. [Brett‘s] got a great energy. He’s a totally sweet dude. I mean, he’s just one of those kids that gets ‘it’. You would think that because of his age being — I don’t know; I think he’s 28 now — that does infuse us with a certain amount of new energy, which is very cool.” (as transcribed by Blabbermouth)
He went on to explain that Carlisle is enthusiastic about contributing new music with the group: “He’s very interested in recording some new material with us because he would like to put his stamp on the Great White history. And we are working on tunes all the time. I think that it shouldn’t be difficult at all for him to, to find his voice within the framework of what [Great White guitarist] Mark [Kendall] and I are coming up with. So we’re looking forward to that.”
Rather than taking the traditional approach of releasing a full-length album all at once, Lardie said the band is adapting to how people now consume music. “I think what we’re gonna try and do this time around is instead of doing an entire album, do two or three songs at a time, put ’em out there, maybe do a video, and then when we’re close to 12 to 15, we’ll slap them all together and make them available as an entire album,” he explained.
He also acknowledged the challenges of today’s short attention spans, especially when compared to earlier decades. “Because of social media, the attention span, as you know, is somewhat diminished from what it was. I mean, think about when you were a kid, putting on a Led Zeppelin record or an Aerosmith record, you wanted to listen to the whole record. And that’s the thing that is different about the way people consume music now. So we wanna make sure that we are true to our fans that have been with us forever, but also understand that life is so busy that we want them to ingest new material. It’s just the way society is now. It’s just they need to take it in smaller doses.”
Reflecting on the shift from full albums to song-by-song releases, Lardie admitted he misses the days of making full records. “I’ve been doing records — I’ve been an engineer since 1979, which is, in fact, when I met Great White in the studio in ’83 and worked on their very first record when they were on EMI,” he said. “That’s when they were definitely more in the realm of, say a Judas Priest — the sound was more like that. And I think when Mark found himself as a blues player, it really kind of clicked as to what our signature sound was going to be.”
He concluded by saying: “But I miss doing records — I mean, in their entirety. You’re talking two, three months block out of time, every day you’re going to the studio, you’re doing the thing… So I do miss doing entire records, but one has to stay with the times.”
With new music in the works and a fresh approach to releasing it, Great White appears ready to balance their legacy with a more modern, flexible strategy, all while giving their new frontman room to leave his mark.
