Eric "A.K." Knutson has been the singer of FLOTSAM AND JETSAM for four decades, which means he was there for the part of the story the band's current run tends to skip over. Appearing on The David Ellefson Show, hosted by the former MEGADETH bassist alongside Joshua Toomey, he was direct about it.
"The whole grunge era really did damage to us as far as writing and direction," he said.
The damage was self-inflicted as much as environmental. Signed to MCA and watching the ground shift underneath thrash, the band tried to meet the moment, releasing three albums in a row that Knutson says did not feel like theirs. The commercial reward never arrived. What did arrive was attrition: members left, the lineup had to be rebuilt from the ground up, and the musical direction stayed knocked off course for years afterwards.
It is a familiar arc for the class of 1986, but FLOTSAM AND JETSAM are one of the few from that cohort who eventually clawed the sound back rather than settling into a nostalgia circuit. Knutson credits the current lineup's chemistry for that, and specifically the arrival of drummer Ken Mary — a musician whose CV runs through ALICE COOPER and ACCEPT and who brought production instincts along with the drumming. "Ken Mary — he's got such experience," Knutson said.
Alongside Mary the band is co-founder Michael Gilbert and Steve Conley on guitars and Bill Bodily on bass. Knutson describes the writing process as genuinely flat: the five are "equal partners" in every creative decision, which is a pointed contrast to the label-steered years he had just finished describing.
The conversation also touched on the band's touring history with MEGADETH — Ellefson being on the other side of that particular story — and on early encounters with KORN, back when the Bakersfield band were an opening act nobody had a category for.
"Rats In The Temple", the band's new album, arrives August 28 through Napalm Records. Its timing is not accidental: it lands 40 years after "Doomsday For The Deceiver", the 1986 debut that earned Kerrang!'s first and only six-K review and remains one of the foundational documents of American thrash.
Source: blabbermouth.net