311 may sound as if they're egging on an '80s metal revival, but the band makes their devotion to Iron Maiden and Mötley Crüe easy to swallow by mixing in heaping spoonfuls of hip-hop, dashes of Santana- and Ernest Ranglin-influenced guitars, and even a pinch of dream pop reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. But the dark side is never far off -- just as soon as a reverb-drenched tremolo line and a sweet melody drift from your speakers, you'll get hit head-on with a blazing metal assault. "I can't help it," admits 311's lead guitarist Tim Mahoney. "I'm a rocker."

The band -- Mahoney, DJ/rapper SA Martinez, singer/guitarist Nick Hexum, bassist P-Nut, and drummer Chad Sexton -- just released its fifth album, Soundsystem [Capricorn]. "On this album we focused on making all the songs rockin' enough that we'd really enjoy playing them live every night," says Mahoney. Before the band rolled the tour bus out of their adopted hometown of Los Angeles (the members are originally from Omaha, Nebraska), Mahoney and Hexum gave up the details about how they mixed the stylistic alloy of Soundsystem...

Read the interview, by Kyle Swenson, here: http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/311.htm.

Hear sound bytes here: http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=364587705/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/ArtistID=311/itemid=796369 or search from: http://cdnow.com/from=sr-767167.

Excerpt of Review from CDNOW:
"Those funk-rock kings from Nebraska are back... and for Soundsystem, the band's ninth album, they're leaning far heavier on the rock than on the funk. The guitars are churning out chunkier, more metallic riffs, eventually wind up dominating the entire affair. Soundsystem is an album that's meant to get heads banging... Of course, if the visceral antics of 311 never appealed to you before, it's doubtful that Soundsystem will change your mind..."

The 311 Guitar Archive - Guitar Tabs
http://chromosome.colorado.edu/311archive/Guitar_Archive/ already includes some tracks from Soundsystem": http://chromosome.colorado.edu/311archive/Guitar_Archive/Albums/Soundsystem.html.