Rival Sons drummer Mike Miley says next album will be rawer, less polished

Rival Sons drummer Mike Miley has already given the clearest early signal yet that the band’s next record will not chase shine for its own sake. Miley said the group is working on a new album for a tentative 2027 release, and he wants it to feel more raw, organic and instinctive than some of the recent material.

For drummers, that is the real story. Miley is not just talking about song selection or guitar tones, he is pointing straight at feel, the thing that tells a Rival Sons track whether it is breathing or boxed in. In practical terms, that kind of reset usually means fewer overdubs, a looser tempo pocket, more room sound, and more of the energy that happens when a take is allowed to stand on its own. That is the kind of language that suggests the drum chair could shape the whole record, not just keep time.

Miley also said he thought the last two Rival Sons records were too polished at times, a pointed remark when the band’s most recent studio cycle was Darkfighter and Lightbringer, both produced by Dave Cobb and released in 2023. Those albums followed a long run that already defined the group’s identity through Pressure & Time, Head Down, Great Western Valkyrie, Hollow Bones and Feral Roots. The band has long sold itself as a straight-ahead rock act built on muscle, groove and feel, not studio gloss, so Miley’s comments sound less like a rejection of progress than a push to get back to the core of what made the band connect in the first place.

That matters because Rival Sons are not newcomers searching for a first identity. Formed in Long Beach, California, in 2008, the current lineup of Jay Buchanan, Scott Holiday, Dave Beste and Miley has spent nearly two decades refining its place in modern hard rock while keeping one foot planted in classic-rock tradition. The band also launched Sacred Tongue Recordings with distribution through Thirty Tigers in 2021, another sign that control over presentation and sound has become part of the long game.

Miley’s remarks make the next Rival Sons album feel like more than a routine follow-up. If the drummer gets his way, the new record will not just be heard as another chapter after Darkfighter and Lightbringer. It will be the one where the band leans back into danger, groove and first-take conviction, and lets the drums carry a little more of the risk again.