Legendary Bay Area metallers Y&T; - featuring original members Dave Meniketti (vocals and lead guitars) and Phil Kennemore (bass), along with longtime members John Nymann (guitar) and Mike Vanderhule (drums) - will release their first studio album in 13 years, Facemelter, on May 21st via Frontiers Records in Europe and Meanstreak Music in the US, with a Japanese release to follow.

Meniketti spoke to BraveWords.com correspondent Deb Rao recently about the band's anxiously-anticipated return, the name Facemelter, their current tour and a number of other topics.

BraveWords.com: Y&T; is gearing up for your first studio release in 13 years. What inspired the band to go back into the studio and record after such a long period to time?

Meniketti: "It was just simply for the longest period of time people have been asking us, 'When do we get a new record?' When we got back together again in 2001 and we started playing again for real there were quite a few years in a row where everybody was just happy to see us on the scene again and playing most of the classic stuff that everybody wants to hear. They still want to hear that obviously. Once we had finalized that we are full on doing this full time again, there was always going to be this questions so now when is the new record coming? We needed to give ourselves the time to finally get to a point and say yeah we are finally ready to do it. The natural time was basically the end of 2008; we said it is time to do it. Let's go for it. We started in January and February of 2009-started writing for the album. Then we got busy on tour the whole rest of the year. Then we finally got back to it this January and February and finished everything up."

BraveWords.com: Do you see the trend reverting back to the '80's bands again? So many of the bands that have emerged from that genre are releasing new material again. Do you feel the fans are trying to fill the void of radio today and looking into these bands that emerged from the era with bands having such a huge core of radio hits?

Meniketti: "I have certainly seen that the popularity is there. Whether the trend has gone back to it I think that it is just as viable as it has been for quite sometime. But there is also a new set of rock guys out there that is still doing obviously very well. It is co-existing very nicely with everything else that is out there. Let's put it that way. There are much more fans out there that are much more interested in our style of music than they are to the newer style of some of the new bands out. It gives everybody a chance still. It is great. I still have a job. That is the big thing."

BraveWords.com: Do you find that Y&T; are discovering a whole new of fans and that is why it is important for bands like Y&T; that have emerged out of the '80's genre to release new music and stay viable in this day and age where the music industry is so complex?

Meniketti: "Absolutely! For sure about that. Because we have noticed in the last two years especially there have been a whole lot of young kids that are coming to the shows. It seems like there is a bigger number of them in the last couple of years coming to all of these shows. That is a good thing for me because these are a whole new generation of people that can get off on the music that we are doing. It is very important that I think that we come out with new material. For some of these people it is going to be the first new record for a band like us. It is going to be basically like a first record. Sure they have heard all of the hits in the past and we have done other things. But it is just like if you just discovering a band and they just come out with a new record for you it is their first record. So I think it is real important. We had to do a new record for ourselves mainly not just for the fans. It was for ourselves just to feel like we were viable and current. We had something to say still. It was real important that we out this together."

BraveWords.com: The record has a huge arena feel to it. What kind of sound were you aiming for in the studio on Facemelter?

Meniketti: "I am not really 100 percent certain we were trying to capture anything one way or another. I think the whole thing about Y&T; has been that we write however we feel at the time. We don't purposely try to duplicate any of our previous records because I think that isn't fair to anybody. Especially the fans because you don't want your favourite band to be doing something purposely other than exactly how they write everyone of their records. Which is just what happens in the moment. Obviously, I knew that we needed to edit ourselves from some things. Sometimes I write some things that are a little bit bluesy. I know that isn't going to fit for a Y&T; crowd. You can easily see something like that and say that need to go. Other than that we write as a band and we come up with good rock stuff that we all decide is good enough to go on a record. That is it. We are not really trying to duplicate anything from the past. I am glad you said it has a big arena sound because that has been one of our problems of the decades. To do a studio record that represents some degree of what the band is like live. We have always had that criticism over the years. They say 'man your studio stuff is good but it is nothing like what you guys are like live.' If we were going to try anything, we were going to have that integrity in there."

BraveWords.com: What was the vibe like in the studio when you were recording the new material? Were the other members of the band really excited about the work?

Meniketti: "Oh yes, It was really cool. Two of the members it was the first time that they have done a record with Y&T.; John our guitar player has been with the band on and off in different capacities since the good '80's. He has been behind the scenes. He has done background vocals. He has done so much for the band over the years. When he joined the band in 2003, he was like this extra guy that was always that wanted to be in the band. Now it was finally his chance to get in here. It was a perfect fit. It was nicely nice for him having been a fan and friend, and a partner in the organization for so many years to finally get himself on a Y&T; record as a real member. He was really jazzed. He wrote a song or two for the record and co-wrote a couple of things. Our drummer has only been with us for four years. It was his first attempt to be able to do something with the band. They were like kids in candy store."

BraveWords.com: How did you come up with the name Facemelter for the new album?

Meniketti: "That happened form a '70's kind of thing when we were first playing over in other areas outside of our Bay area. We started becoming very popular in Los Angeles. There was a fan who came to our early shows and he got backstage and he was so excited to meet us and he said, 'I just wanted to tell you guys you melted my face out there.' It was the first time that we ever heard anybody say something like that. It stuck with us ever since that day. We were all laughing. That was maybe 1976. When we were able to construct our own publishing company in 1981, we said let's call the publishing company Facemelting Music. Ever since then the true fans knew about the facemelting and Y&T; kind of thing. So it is history. So most fans were even saying even before we released the album, 'I hope it is a facemelter.' Not necessarily the title but the tracks but the associate facemelter and face melting with Y&T.; It wasn't until I went online about a month ago and goggled the term facemelter that I realized that now it's in a bunch of different categories meaning a term for getting your asses kicked by a live rock band. I was like, 'Wow really?' So this actually ended up being a real term outside of a Y&T; thing. So we just thought that this is the first record that we out in thirteen years, it will be cool to just make this thing all about what the fans already know about us. Facemelter is a term that they know about Y&T.;"

BraveWords.com: Y&T; has a huge show coming up at The Fillmore on May 22. Tell us what the fans can expect to see on this tour? Are you looking forward to performing the new material?

Meniketti: "We are real excited about the tour. We are going to slowly work in new songs. The first show we are playing is in Chicago and we get a 90-minute set that is shorter than the normal two-hour set that we do. We know we are only going to have time to play a couple of new songs. But the time we get to the Fillmore, we will be playing easily three to more new songs. I don't know how many at this point. I know that the fans are getting really antsy now We also know from past records that you don't want to hit them with too many new songs if they haven't had a chance to hear the record yet. Because they still want to hear a lot of the classic stuff. So it is going to be a good blend. It is going to be a blend of the stuff that the people want to hear from the past records but we are going to hit them with quite a bit of new songs at The Fillmore because it is our official new record release party. So I think that they know that they got to expect that we are going to play more than 2 or 3 songs. We will probably play a half dozen."

BraveWords.com: Tell us about the making of the new video 'I'm Coming Home.'

Meniketti: "The record company said we are going to pay for a video for you guys. We think this is a strong song and why don't you do it for 'I'm Coming Home.' The guys in the band said yeah it is a strong song. Let's do it. The video is already done. We filmed the video last Friday. We filmed it in a local airport The Hayward Airport. It is pretty raw, straight-ahead footage. It is just the band playing live kind of vibe. We will see what happens. I haven't seen any footage yet. I am interested to see it myself. That should be done and out there in a couple of weeks."

BraveWords.com: Y&T; has a huge European tour his year. The band is performing such huge festivals such as Sweden Rock and Download,

Meniketti: "Those festivals every year are always a great thing for us to do. A favourite of mine is playing Sweden Rock. When I see other bands being interviewed that seems to be their favourite too for some reason. I don’t know what it is about Sweden Rock but it is one of the coolest festivals to play. We have played it twice before earlier in the decade in 2003 and 2004. It has been awhile since we have been back. We got a lot of big fans in the Sweden area and Scandinavia. A lot of people travel there from all over Europe and from the U.S. as well. So that will be fun The huge festival in the UK is the Download Festival. It used to be called Monsters Of Rock when we played it many years ago. In fact, the fans tell us that they think we were probably on the best Monsters Of Rock ever in 1984. It was AC/DC, VAN HALEN, OZZY OSBOURNE, GARY MOORE, Y&T;, ACCEPT and MÖTLEY CRÜE opened the show. So that was amazing one back then. Now we get to sort of re-visit it many years later."

Meniketti recently provided BraveWords.com an exclusive track-by-track breakdown of Facemelter - check it out here. Samples for all tracks featured on the album are currently streaming at this location.

Y&T; at Melodic Rock Fest 2 in Elgin, IL (outside of Chicago):