By Jim Barber
It actually took a second to realize the truth of the situation. But yes indeed, it has been a decade, 10 whole years, since internationally-lauded Canadian alternative rock band Finger Eleven released a studio album.
In recent years, there’s been a greatest hits package which featured a new hit song, ‘Together Right’ and a continent-spanning tour with iconic 1990s band Creed, but it took until this fall of 2025 for the band’s four founding members, singer Scott Anderson, lead guitarist James Black, bassist Sean Anderson and rhythm guitarist Rick Jackett, alongside drummer Steve Molella (who has been in the band since 2014) to write, record and release the already critically acclaimed and on-its-way-to-being viral new record, Last Night on Earth.
There are a number of reasons why there’s been such a long gap between studio albums for Finger Eleven. One reason is the nature of the band’s label status and how they spent much of the first two decades of their career working hard to make inroads into the most lucrative and intensely competitive music markets in the world – The United States of America.
“In a way, we’re kind of going back into the U.S. market with this album because we spent so much time there. Originally we were signed to Wind-Up Records which is based out of Manhattan. So we were signed to them from 1997 through to when they stopped being a label, and then they were sold [merging with other labels to become Concord Bicycle Music]. We were signed directly to an American label, so we spent the majority of our time in the States opening for bands, touring, trying to break that market and we did have success in pockets. When that record deal ended we came home and we spent the majority of the last 10 years back in Canada, sort of rebuilding the fan base and going back and playing paces we hadn’t played for a long time, because we had spent so much time down there in the States. Interestingly, when we were putting this new record together, we felt like the best move would be to be signed directly to an America record label again. So that’s where we’re at now [with Better Noise Music] and it’s because for our career, because we’re Canadian, but they’re American, that’s what we’ve found is sort of the best way to be strong in both countries at the same time. So the label situation is one of the reasons why there’s been this ‘tiny’ little gap of 10 years between records,” said Jackett from his home in rural southwestern Ontario.
“And do you know what? I think that’s on us, to be honest. That’s just a real, like, Finger Eleven thing to do. Even back in the day we still took two or three years to make a record. So we were never one of those prolific bands that just always was pumping music out there. But we kind of needed a break too. We started this band in high school [their early career saw them have success as The Rainbow Butt Monkeys before a name change in the mid-1990s] and had a pretty long run with that, and then with the success of ‘Paralyzer’ [from the 2007 album Them vs. You vs. Me], I mean there was some serious success that we had to chase and eventually we were burnt out. We were tired. So there was a bit of an unspoken hiatus. There was no desire to break up. There was no desire to go away. But there was this need to go refuel the tanks mentally, spiritually and physically. And that’s sort of what we did. We kept writing, but we didn’t put ourselves on a schedule and because we didn’t have a label when we started writing for this record, there was no exterior pressure coming in to try and get something done. We just started realizing that we have the luxury of time here and no one’s waiting, no one’s watching, so we can just kind of experiment a bit more like we used to do. That’s really what it was. It was a natural, organic sort of undefined timeline that we were following. But as I was saying in my last interview, you can always put an asterisk on that explanation because then COVID happened, so two of those 10 years were just taken away from us. We couldn’t get in the studio everyday and work. We couldn’t do the things we would normally do, and we had just got the wheels turning just before everything shut down. So, yeah it took a while for this record.
“But that’s something that we embraced at a certain point. We knew it had been a while. We felt that, listen, if we’re going to do it at this point, if we’re going to put a record out, it’s got to be of quality, because we’ve set a standard for ourselves and that’s sort of what we aim for. Because there was also those discussions of singles versus record and all that entails. Once we realized we’re going to actually make an album, then that’s when the hard work started.”
It’s not like Finger Eleven completely disappeared off the music map. Two years after releasing Five Crooked Lines in 2015, the band played a series of three special shows in southern Ontario to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their first album as Finger Eleven, Tip. The following year, at Burlington’s Sound of Music Festival, they appeared onstage for the first time since 1997 under the Rainbow Butt Monkeys banner, playing a bunch of songs from the Letters from Chutney album, which was released in 1995. And of course songs like the aforementioned ‘Paralyzer,’ as well as ‘Quicksand,’ ‘One Thing,’ ‘Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me,’ and other hits are still played on terrestrial radio and alternative rock streaming services to this day.
After COVID, the band recorded a new song, ‘Together Right,’ which was issued as part of a Greatest Hits packaged in the summer of 2023. A year later, they announced to the world that what would become Last Night on Earth was underway.
“That greatest hits was sort of initiated by our old label. We weren’t really signed with them anymore, or anyone else at that time, actually, but they own our songs. But we felt like it was a point in our career where we could do this, actually put a compilation together and take songs like ‘Paralyzer’ and ‘One Thing’ and put them on the same record. And I know greatest hits packages get jokey flack in the music snobbery industry, but I’m a huge fan of greatest hits records. I love greatest hits and I think a good greatest hits compilation is a real achievement for a band. If you put a greatest hits on, from beginning to end it’s all great music and there’s something on there that all people will enjoy. So we went to the label and said, ‘you guys will probably put out a greatest hits for us at some point, but can we work with you and put it out now? And they were totally into that. And we had this new song called ‘Together Right’ [which topped the Canadian rock chart in 2023] so it was a perfect delivery for that. Which was sort of the Tom Petty model because at one point he put out a greatest hits album but he also included ‘Last Dance With Mary Jane’ on it. So the idea was, hey, let’s remind people that we’ve been making music for a couple of decades, but let’s also let them know that we’re making new stuff too. And the thing is, one of the reasons why I always loved greatest hits albums is it was the perfect way to learn about a new band, or even remind yourself of an old band you used to like. You’re obviously a music fan like me, and I nerd out on that stuff. I remember I would go through a greatest hits and read all about this song and that song. And realize, ‘oh they’re from the same album,’ and I’d go get that album. That’s how you dive deeper into a band.”
Being a self-described music nerd, Jackett said that the discussion about whether to follow the current pop music, streaming model of releasing only singles and maybe an album down the road, wasn’t one they were interested in following.
“The idea of doing a full album probably stems more from the music fan side of us than it does from the industry side. I know the industry side has many, many ideas of what is the best thing, the best release strategy. But, truly, their agenda is different than ours. Their agenda is to sell as much of whatever it is to as many people as possible, at the lowest cost possible, and that’s fine. That’s great. I don’t have a problem with that. But as a band, and as a music fan, I just like collecting the albums from bands I like. I like referring to the albums. Like, Iron Maiden’s ‘Run to the Hills’ is an amazing song, but it’s not that cool if it’s just ‘Run to the Hills,’ and that was the only Maiden song to come out that year. When it’s part of a record [in this case Number of the Beast], it changes things. So to us, we had this discussion within the band with people from the outside saying, ‘maybe you guys should just drop a song here or there to remind people that you’re still a band, just to get a tour.’ But it just didn’t feel right. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it the way we always loved it when our favourite bands used to do it. I just always liked the artwork and liner notes and everything else about an album. I’m just a geek like that. And the other guys are the same. I grew up on music, so to me having that physical thing, having a collection of songs is cool. A record of songs is a record of that time in the band’s career. And that’s what it should be. During this time period, these are the songs we made. Last Night on Earth is our latest record of songs that we’ve recorded and represent that period of time.”
Jackett then talked about how heartened he is that such a large portion of the vinyl being purchased and treasured is being acquired by younger folks, and how so many indie bands, from across the genre spectrum, are recording and releasing vinyl, and taking the time to ensure the entire experience, from the music, to the colour of the vinyl through to cover art and special packaging is unique.
“I think there’s a lot of younger bands carrying that torch. I don’t know if you’re a fan of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is one of the best bands to be a fan of because of that exact reason; they make each LP it’s own experience with all these different printings and alternate covers and stuff. And that is exciting for any music fan to sort of be able to collect the actual thing. Also, I think with rock music, alternative music, indie music, whatever you call it, it’s not popular right now,” he said.
“It’s not the mainstream style of music, and that’s a good thing, because when that happens, when it becomes unpopular and becomes underground, that’s when the cool stuff gets made, and that sort of seems to be happening right now. There is a younger generation of fans and bands out there sort of rediscovering rock music or whatever you want to call it, music made by bands, music made by guys and girls in little rooms with instruments and this genre is sort of bubbling back up. I think that breeds the kind of fan who wants all the information. They want to know the engineer’s name, they want to know who wrote what song. They want to know the lyrics, and you don’t get that by clicking a stream. I’m a songwriter geek, I always want to know who wrote the songs I love. There are a lot of guys our age [35 …. just kidding] who have given up and are saying there’s no good music being made nowadays. I’m here to say that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is they’ve given up putting in the time and energy to find it. You just have to dig in places that you don’t know where to look. But when you get there, there’s incredible scenes, there’s incredible bands out there. And there’s amazing music being made. And I love that. I do think it’s unfortunate because as a guy in a rock band, and as a guy who loves rock, I want everybody in the world to love rock. But when everybody stops loving rock, that’s when the cool kids start loving it. And then the music gets edgier and has something deeper to say.”
Last Night on Earth was very much made in the ‘old school’ fashion, with a bunch of dudes sitting around various rooms, plucking, strumming, humming along, grasping for chords, riffs, hooks and melodies. And because there was such an extended gap between albums, there was lots of time for each band member to recharge their individual creative batteries, pick up a new influence here and there, or revisit old inspirations. The result is a Finger Eleven album that is truly representative of the scope of the band’s sound, with all sorts of dynamism in tone and tenor, all anchored by the band’s mastery of sonic energy, insightful lyricism and a hard rockin’ energy that hearkens back to the early years of the 21st century.
“I would say that the album as an entity, in its entirety is the best representation of our entire canon of work, the whole spectrum. There are moments on this record that are maybe some of our heaviest moments. And then there’s moments on this record that may be some of our softest moments too. That wasn’t by accident. We embraced all of that at this point in our lives and in our career. We were able to have enough distance from what we were doing before to be able to look back and see the best of what we did before. So maybe the 10 years helped in that respect. Also, our drummer was a big part of that because he’s the newest member, he’s been in the band for nearly 12 years, but he was a fan before and he’s also a producer and he’s a writer, so he was able to sort of remind us of musical choices we had made in the past that we had kind of abandoned over the years or just never went back and did them again. He allowed us to see our own work with a different perspective, and I think this album sort of embraces all those things in one swoop,” he explained.
“Like, there’s piano stiff, and there’s trippy stuff and that sort of thing, but then there’s lots of guitar riffs, lots and lots of yelling and screaming. And it all seems to fit together. For us, if there was a mission statement for this record, it was that the only responsibility we had, if we were going to put out another Finger Eleven record, was to put out a true-to-form Finger Eleven record, versus trying to guess what other bands are doing or trying to guess what would work here, trying to anticipate and over strategize. We took a cue from AC/DC. When grunge was taking over the world, they put out ‘Thunderstruck.’ It’s the feeling that, ‘listen, we’ve been a band long enough. We know what we like and who we are, let’s just put out the best Finger Eleven record we can and not worry about everything else.’ That outside stuff doesn’t matter to us because we can’t let it matter. We had the responsibility to put out a good Finger Eleven record, and that’s what I feel like we did.
“Honestly, one of the most beautiful things, for me, about this last record was that we didn’t have that exterior pressure on any level. There was no one except for the five of us making any decisions, having any opinions. That was my favourite part. That is the best thing, the best environment to have when you’re making a record. It’s what’s so fun about making your first record. When you’re making that first record, no one knows who you are yet. No one gives a shit, so you just follow your own instincts, and make your own decisions. So, for us, this was like going back to making our first record. No one besides us was caring what we did, or how we did it. No one was knocking on our door saying, ‘where’s the next Finger Eleven record?’ It was just up to us to make it if it was even going to get band. And we took our time.”
Once the squeaky wheel of songwriting began to be greased, the instruments broke out, and ideas started bouncing around, Jackett said the Finger Eleven songwriting process began and continued in a way that was as instinctual as it was retro.
“Ninety-eight per cent of the songs are Scott’s words. For this record, the one big change was that we were going to do no more internet writing. No more Dropbox files, and all that stuff. We still use technology to get stuff done, but we decided to go back to the beginning in terms of how we were going to start the process. Almost all this music started in that old school kind of way where we were all in a room together. We started the journey from that point and that was part of what made it take so long as well, because even if we were doing just the bass track for a song, four of us would be there in the studio., even though we all live in different parts of Ontario. It takes a while just to schedule time for people to come, but that was how much we all cared about the record. We wanted to be there for every step, and that’s how we used to care and the way we used to do it because used to live in the studio when we would make a record. We’d be there all the time,” he said.
“And it worked the same way this time, because when we’re all in the room, listening, ideas are flowing more naturally, somebody might hear something from the guitar player noodling in the corner and come up with an idea. Maybe the drummer suggested something cool for the guitar solo, or the guitarist would suggest a cool bass riff – that sort of thing has always created the Finger Eleven sound. So that’s something we went back and revisited on the record. And musically, the music comes from the four musicians, because Scott doesn’t play any instruments. We develop some form of a song where it’s in a rough arrangement of two or three riffs, an idea and we’d throw it over to Scott and he’ll come back with something inspired by that, the lyrics and a melody. Sometimes that melody sticks, like with ‘Paralyzer’ where it’s the exact melody he wrote the very first time. Sometimes it’s nothing like it when we get to the end of the song and we’ve rewritten the melody, which could be from any one of us. But lyrics are always Scott, and music’s always coming from the other band members, and the combining of the two is sort of the melding of all that process. Sometimes his chorus will be better than our chorus so we’ll rewrite our parts and sometimes our part is better than his so he rewrites his parts. That’s when it really becomes a group thing and brings it to the finish line.
“It was cool to do it that way because I think it gives the songs and the recording itself a lot more energy. I can’t tell you how many times someone might be working on something so I figured I could go outside and have a smoke and as I’m walking out the door I’ll hear something and run back into the room. I wasn’t even supposed to be there, I was on my way out, but something the guy was playing triggered an idea. I don’t know the scientific reasoning for it, but I do believe in those energies and those synapses firing in real time, in the same room make a difference. I think there’s something, let’s call it magic, happening in that instance. I think when you do it by yourself on your computer, even if you get to a cool idea, you might have missed a step along the way because you would have had another guy there say, ‘hey, let’s try this,’ and it makes that cool idea so much better.”
When suggested by the nerd music journalist that being in a band for more than 30 years, the members develop a hive-mind like The Borg, from the Star Trek universe, Rick Jackett out-nerded the music journalist with, “I think we’re more like Voltron in the sense that this guy’s got that covered because that’s his role, I’ve got my part covered because that’s my role. I’m the right leg of the big robot when it comes together, but if I try to be the left leg, we’re going to fall over.”
Whichever 1980s kids sci-fi cartoon reference works, the proof of the deeper, more insightful and proficient connections between the band members is proved by the excellence of the songs. Besides the already-released banger of a single, ‘Adrenalize,’ Jackett said he is particularly proud of one of the ‘softer’ songs on the record, the evocative ‘Wall Dogs.’
“It’s a slower song and our bass player Sean, and this is a very rare thing in the Finger Eleven universe, he wrote that song in its entirety. He wrote the words and the melody and the piano parts and all this stuff. He had sent it over one day, back in the middle of the 10 years, just as a random thing. He sent a folder with five or six song ideas, and we all do that once in a while, but not really for Finger Eleven purposes. It was just to show us, hey guys, this is what I’m doing. But it wasn’t for our record or anything. So that song to me stuck out; all I could hear was Scott singing it. But I just sort of kept that to myself,” he said.
“And later I took Scott and James aside and said, ‘hey guys, let’s re-record this without Sean knowing and give it to him for Christmas.’ That was what it was supposed to be, a Christmas present a couple of years ago. So we record all the stuff and James would play lead guitar and Scott sang and we recorded it and mixed it. And then on Christmas morning, I sent it over to him and he was blown away by that because he never expected anything like that. He was so touched. But when we re-recorded it for him, it turned it into a Finger Eleven song instantly, but it was also a really unique kind of new sound for the band, because we never had a song with just piano. We would never write it like that. But because of the way Sean wrote it, it just worked. And there was a moment when it was like, hey, we’re writing a record, we’re making songs, here’s one that’s already pretty much finished, and without really thinking about it, decided it was going on the album.
“I think for lots of people ideas just hit you like a bolt out of the blue. I think, if I understand the story currently, it was based on Checkpoint Charlie, the place in Berlin that used to be where you crossed over from West into East Berlin back during the Cold War in the 1960s, and people were always trying to escape from the east over the wall and the barbed wire. I think it was a result of a visit there and he just thought that idea of you know, it’s one thing to try and escape from one side to the other, but it’s another thing when you’re trying to escape with someone you love. It’s that extra responsibility and that extra kind of danger. That’s where it came from, but he’s smart enough in the songwriting to not be specific with any kind of location. It’s just about what you would risk for the person you love. For me, I always picture it as like some kind of weird alien apocalypse. I always picture it as if he’s singing about aliens hunting us and we’re hiding with the ones we love somewhere trying to stay safe. It’s just a really unique take on a love song.”
Another compelling track is ‘Cold Concrete.’
“I love that song, and it has a neat story. For a long time, that song just sort of existed as the first little riff and a little vocal thing. And then we sort of really dug into it. James then came up with the riff in the second part, but then the thing about that song is that we got to what we thought was the finish line and we had sent if off and it was literally being mixed that day. We were over at Steve’s place working on something else and James says, ‘you know what. I still think the bridge of ‘Cold Concrete’ can be better.’ But it was being mixed as he spoke. But then we quickly grabbed the guitars, starting working and wrote this riff, and we knew it was better. So we had to call our engineer in the middle of the mix and say, ‘hey stop mixing. Leave everything as it is, we’re going to send you over a whole new bridge to ‘Cold Concrete.’ You have to pop it in and match the levels and all that suff.’ That was something new for us. I felt proud of that because it’d be so much easier to say, oh well, it’s too late. It is how it is. But, again, because we had no one over our shoulder watching, there was no one else waiting for it. So it was on our own clock and on our own dime, and we took advantage of that. And now, when I hear the song back and that part kicks in, it makes me excited because I can’t believe we did that, right at the last second. It was awesome.”
As well as working on Last Night on Earth, Finger Eleven spent a great deal of time on the road, crisscrossing North America with a reunited Creed for their Summer of ’99 and Beyond tour. It was not only an excellent opportunity to get themselves in front of tens of thousands of fans, primarily back in U.S., night after night, but also to reconnect with the fellas in Creed, singer Scott Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall.
“it was awesome. It was great. We toured a lot with them back in the late 1990s and early 2000s because they were part of Wind-Up Records as well. They were the reason Wind-Up became so successful at the time. So we did a lot of shows with them back then. We were with them when they were playing a thousand seaters, and we were with them when they were getting into 10,000 seat venues and playing huge festivals. They brought us with them the whole time. So we spent a lot of years with them as they grew and we became good friends. We just spent a lot of time on the road together, and at one point we just sort of went our separate ways. There was no animosity or anything, and shortly after that they broke up [2004]. And we never really talked to them all that much over the years, but we never stopped being friends either,” Jackett said.
“So all of a sudden one day there’s someone telling us, ‘hey, Creed’s reaching out. They’re going to go on the road and they want to know if you guys want to go.’ First of all we were surprised they were getting back together, but secondly, holy shit, they remember us? This is crazy! They said they wanted us, and we said yes right away, obviously. But then it got so much bigger than even they thought it would. More dates, bigger venues, it was a really, really fun tour. The energy in those room, especially the outdoor amphitheaters, I’ve never been to as many concerts in a row where everybody was just so happy, and they were all happy for their own reasons. One of my favourite things about Creed and their success right now is they do have this weird sort of dichotomy where you would literally see a person with their Bible in the air, and right beside them would be someone so f***ing wasted they could barely stand. But each one was cool with that. Everybody was enjoying themselves. I’ve never seen people at concerts who were just so happy and excited like that.
“And for our part, we didn’t know what to expect, We got asked to go out because Creed asked us, but we didn’t know if their audience, or if people in America were going to remember who the band was. But we got a welcome, every single night, with open arms. And all the bands and crews were really great to our band. We had a really wonderful tour, it was like rock and roll summer camp.”
This fall presents another chance for music fans in Canada to enjoy some 1990s alternative rock nostalgia, as Finger Eleven goes out on tour alongside The Tea Party and Headstones.
“Us and the Tea Party get along great. We don’t know the Headstones very well. But I always look forward to seeing the guys in The Tea Party. We’ve been touring with them for so long. We started as the Rainbow Butt Monkeys opening up for them back in the day, everywhere you could play in Ontario. So to be sort of more on a peer level now and to be playing with them is cool. Everybody’s doing their own headlining set, and it’s super cool. I’m a huge fan of [Tea Party guitarist/vocalist] Jeff Martin. I’m a fan of his guitar playing, so whenever we get to play with people that I can just sort of sit back and watch play guitar, it’s pretty cool. I’m always the same way when we play with I Mother Earth, and watching Jag [Tanna, their guitarist/producer],” Jackett said.
For more information on Finger Eleven, the new album and upcoming shows, visit www.fingereleven.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
