Hailing from Windsor, Ontario, alt-rock duo The Blue Stones performed at Bunbury Music Festival earlier this month after wrapping up their headlining North American tour. This year, vocalist / guitarist Tarek Jafar and drummer Justin Tessier have followed up their 2018 debut album, Black Holes, with several live music releases, including a cover of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and album hit "Black Holes (Solid Ground)." The pair is currently gearing up to hit the studio in preparation for a new album, set to drop next year. While they're still in the planning stages, the guys shared some new details about their "swagger-filled" album with Audiofemme to get us excited.

AF: You guys just finished up your Be My Fyre Tour. How was it? Really, really great. AF: And it was your first headlining coast to coast tour? It wasn't really coast to coast, but it was definitely our first tour through the majority of the North American places that we've wanted to play. We missed a lot of places—like Texas—we didn't get a chance to go there. We want to. Next time we'll do more of the South. AF: That's a big milestone! It was great. It's nice to have actually gone out and done it. You don't really know what to expect. Like Seattle, I've never been there before, but there's a bar full of people that know your music. So it's really, really nice to have that and that was most of the stops, so we really appreciated that. AF: You guys have released two bodies of live music this year, one through Audiotree Live and one through SiriusXM Studios. Are you currently recording any new music? Yeah, we're constantly developing new stuff. We have a pocket of songs right now that we are actually going to be taking to the studio. AF: So a full project is in the works? Yeah, I mean nowadays you record a batch of songs and then put it out and [you] keep doing that, but that's going to be coming up in the early fall. We’ll be putting out new stuff and then next year the full album will be ready.

AF: You guys have such a special energy when you are performing live on stage - is that what made you want to release live tracks? Partly, yeah. Other than that, we were just given really good opportunities to do that so we just took it. But yeah, we didn't have any good quality live stuff from our recent set, so we wanted to make it. AF: Anything else you can tell us about your upcoming album? It's been cooking for a long time, we can say that. I mean, the last time we were in the studio was 2014. AF: So it’ll be songs from a few years ago and new music? Yes, songs from years ago to two weeks ago. AF: For fans that have been with you since the beginning, what will they notice on future releases? It's kind of hard to frame right now, but definitely an in-your-face, energetic, swagger-filled batch of songs. AF: Should we be on the lookout for any visuals? We're starting to transition to the new stuff. Like, we're going to the studio in the next couple months. We love doing cool videos, cool visuals, it's important. It kind of ties the whole idea of an album together. We take care in making sure that works out.

The Blue Stones. Photo by Bill Meis.

INTERVIEWThe Blue Stones Confirm An Album Is On The Way