IN THIS MOMENT guitarists Chris Howorth and Blake Bunzel checked in from the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival in Mansfield to discuss their current release A Star-Crossed Wasteland with Bravewords.com correspondent Deb Rao:

Bravewords.com: Welcome to Boston. How is the Mayhem Festival going so far?

Chris: "It is going amazing. We are having a great time. We couldn't ask for a better tour."

Bravewords.com: The new album was just released A Star-Crossed Wasteland. Tell us about the writing process for the album.

Chris: "It was just like the album before it. We pretty much got off tour and headed to scramble and write as much as we could. Everybody wrote stuff. We tried to put the pile all together. We did that over a period of four or five months. Then we booked a date to go into the studio."

Bravewords.com: How do you like performing the new songs live in front of the masses at Mayhem this summer?

Chris: "We love playing the new songs. They are a blast to play. Everything is little more raw on this album than the last one. The crowd is loving it. We are playing four out of six new songs."

Blake: "I am backing up exactly what Chris is saying. It is an album that is so much fun to play live. If anyone has ever tried to play guitar to this CD, they are probably understanding it is a lot of fun to play."

Bravewords.com: How did you come up with the title A Star-Crossed Wasteland?

Chris: "We didn't have any idea what to call this thing when we first got there. We sat outside on the porch of the studio and hanging out. We were talking what we wanted the theme to be. It just kind of popped into our heads. It developed over a little bit over a couple of different things and we said that's it. We had the imagery come to mind. It all started to fall into place. Then we made that album follow that vibe."

Bravewords.com: As a guitarist, what were you trying to achieve?

Chris: "I think for this album we agreed we wanted to make everything heavier. It is definitely a bit more exactly what we were going for. We wanted to rock out."

Blake: "We wanted to use real amps. We wanted to have a rawer guitar sound. I think we made that happen. Everyone if you haven't heard it go check it out."

Bravewords.com: What are your plans after the Mayhem Festival ends?

Chris:” We are doing a headlining tour when Mayhem ends. We are planning out our Fall Domination tour. There is nothing official yet but it will definitely be coming soon. We will be playing throughout the fall and Christmas. Then starting up in January and all next year."

Click here for BW&BK;'s review of A Star-Crossed Wasteland.