Bob Seger: New Album Is "Half Done"

April 8, 2011 Bob Seger has been hard at work on his first album in five years, and he has six new songs recorded. Now his dilemma is whether to keep including new material that has yet to be written, or use some older tunes that he just never officially released in the past. But in the meantime, he is enjoying being back on the road with his band for a few months before he starts writing again in June. "Last fall I put out this album Early Seger Vol. 1. It was a real rush job, but it got me looking through all this old stuff. I found that I had 45 to 55 things that no one had ever heard of before," Seger told Rolling Stone at a recent show in Ohio. "All last summer I was working on Volume 2 because the first one just had 10 songs on it... as I worked on them I said, 'You know, I’m going to put the band together and see what these would sound like if we played them live.' As we played together it just kind of kindled the old flame. One of the last things I found going through the archives was 'Downtown Train,' which we cut in 1989. We put that together and I re-sang it and edited it a little bit and we added timpani and the girls and everything, and it really sounded good. So about two months ago I said to my manager, 'If you put this on the radio, is that enough for me to go do a couple of months and see if I still like touring?' In May, I’m going to be 66, so I don’t know how many more years I’ve got a chance to do this. I thought if they played 'Downtown Train' on the radio we could buy some time for a new album perhaps in the fall." Seger added that the new album is about "half-done." "I have three other brand new songs on it, and then I’m torn, because I really like some of this old stuff, 'Downtown Train' being one of them. I’m thinking about maybe a mix of old and new for the next record," he said. "I'll start writing again around June 1. If the song-writing gods smile on me, it will all be new. If they don't, it will be a mixture of new and old – and the best of the old. That's what it will be, whatever the best songs are is what I'll put out." Seger also explained that he is having a good time onstage with his band, but that his age is starting to take its toll. He said that playing a full-on Rock show at this point in his life is sometimes surreal. "Our biggest problem is that we have too many songs. I worked up 36 songs and I can't fit them all in. We did 26 songs in Saginaw the other night and it was just too long. We're cutting it down to 24," he told the magazine. "But it's real fun up there. I'm paying the price though. I've got a real stiff neck and sore back. Other than that, I'm enjoying it." Seger's tour continues on April 9 in Buffalo. He will do a three-night stand in Detroit in late May, and wrap up the trek with a show in Cleveland on May 26.