...Blues Traveler will mark their 25th anniversary as a band this year with a new album and tour. Their tenth LP, Suzie Cracks the Whip, is due June 26th on 429 Records, and the band will launch a co-headlining trek this summer alongside Barenaked Ladies, Cracker and Big Head Todd. Their first full-length since 2008's North Hollywood Shootout is unlike previous Blues Traveler albums, says frontman John Popper, in that it features quite a bit of input from outside songwriters...

..."After 20 years of playing with the same guys pretty much, you start getting written out. One band member would bring a riff they were working on, I'd write words to it, and it got to be very assembly line. We tried doing something different with North Hollywood Shootout, but that didn't work."...

...Of the album's "Suzie," Popper says, "Suzie was one of the people working at the studio, and she wound up doing everything from getting our laundry done to cleaning up the place to jumping in a chair and tracking percussion and vocals. She was the go-to person on this. I had a bullwhip when we were doing a photo shoot I've been a pretty good bullwhipper ever since Raiders of the Lost Ark came out and I said, 'Hey Suzie, you hold the whip.' And then of course, I suggested, 'Hey, whip us!' That became this nifty little photo, and it seemed to be very metaphorical."
    Popper is full of over-the-top boasts about the new LP. "This album will actually cure measles! This album will cure erectile dysfunction! This album is better than roofies!" he jokes. But the frontman is serious about the milestone that it represents for the band. "I don't think there's any song you get bored with, or a bunch of the same kind of tune. We're really pleased with how it turned out. After 25 years of being a band, this is a really great high watermark..." ~ By Greg Prato, rollingstone.com