Gary Graff from Billboard.com is reporting:

The inspiration for a new SPINAL TAP album differs depending on who you ask. Harry Shearer - who crafted Tap with partners Christopher Guest and Michael McKean and director Rob Reiner - tells Billboard.com the 25th anniversary of the hit parody This is Spinal Tap meant "we should probably do it again. There were still a lot of Spinal Tap songs that had never been recorded."

But Tap bassist Derek Smalls contends that Back From The Dead, which is due out June 16, has more to do with technological advancements than to commemorate a film that "made us out to be a laughing stock." "Basically," says Smalls (Shearer's Tap alter ego), "it was possible to put out a record that was louder than any we've ever had before, and that was a selling point right there. We could have the loudest Spinal Tap record there's ever been, and we thought, 'Well, yeah, why not?'"

Loud or proud, Back From The Dead will allow fans to tap into the first Tap album since 1992's Break Like the Wind. The 19-song set includes studio recordings of songs such as 'Hell Hole' and 'Big Bottom', which were played live in This is Spinal Tap, a three-part version of 'Jazz Odyssey', a "reggae stylee" rendition of '(Listen to the) Flower People' and more recent songs such as 'Warmer Than Hell', 'Celtic Blues' and 'Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare'. Guests include DEF LEPPARD's Phil Collen, JOHN MAYER, STEVE VAI playing on the guitar opus "Short and Sweet" (which, in true Tap fashion, is not), and keyboardist Keith Emerson (ELP).

Read more here.

Listen to Billboard's exclusive stream of Spinal Tap's new song 'Back From The Dead' at this location.

(Photo: Art Streiber)