As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been a free man all year and he's making sure to keep busy. Lambesis served only two and a half years on a six-year sentence after he was arrested and eventually convicted of solicitation of murder for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his now ex-wife.
During the trial, Lambesis blamed it all on steroids and marital problems and eventually plea-bargained to get a lower sentence. He was quietly released from prison in December 2016, and has since remarried. Lambesis has stayed out of the public eye for the most part, however the band did post a status to social media two months ago, teasing new activity. Well, we now have some semblance of confirmation that Lambesis is indeed at work.
Rock Feed reports that a source with knowledge on the matter has revealed that Lambesis is indeed working on new music and planning to release it under the As I Lay Dying moniker. It seems this will be a fresh start, as no other previous member of the band is involved. It's hard to blame the rest of the band for not wanting to associate with a guy who, arguably, ruined their careers. Rock Feed does not know the identities of the new members of the band. It will be interesting to see fan reaction to these musicians joining with Tim, and the reaction to the band in general.
Based on recent posts about Tim, we've seen comments from people who seem to have forgiven him or placed the blame elsewhere entirely. Besides the reaction from fans, what would the reaction be from the music industry? Would As I Lay Dying tour? Would bands want to associate themselves with this band's touring? Can you imagine being a support band for AILD and then doing press and having to answer questions about Tim's actions?
And what about As I Lay Dying's label? We know they are still tied down to Metal Blade Records, something Lambesis is not happy about, because they refused to let the band out of their contract. When Lambesis released an album from his side project, Austrian Death Machine, Metal Blade did not release the album, but rather licensed it to Rise Records. Would Metal Blade do the same this time? Or would the success of the Austrian Death Machine album make them want to release it themselves?
There are a lot of questions coming out of this report, and I'm guessing we'll have more concrete answers sooner than later.
