The return of original producer Steve Osborne and a guest appearance by a Rolling Stone highlight Starsailor's upcoming fourth album.Tentatively titled "All the Plans," the album features Stones guitarist Ron Wood on the track "All The Plans We Made," Starsailor frontman James Walsh tells Billboard.com. "We kept asking him if he'd be up for playing some guitar on the record, and at the time he was busy promoting the film ('Shine a Light')," Walsh says. "So there were a couple of months there where he just wasn't available to do it."Then I got a call about half past six one evening from his son Jesse saying, 'My dad really wants to do this now. Can you be at the studio (at) nine o'clock?' So from having sort of given up the ghost it all came together out of the blue. It was amazing; he stood there playing the guitar, saying the song reminded him of 'Maggie May' -- quite high praise, indeed."
Walsh describes the rest of "All the Plans" as "back to our roots in a lot of ways," and a "reaction" to the "darker and heavier" tone of 2005's "On the Outside." "On this album, there's a lot more light to it, and we've reverted back to the more acoustic guitar- and piano-driven sound on a lot of the tracks," Walsh says. "It's hard to encapsulate it in one word or phrase, though."
Starsailor recorded the album in four studios around England, and other song titles include "Stars and Stripes," "Tell Me It's Not Over," and "Boy in Waiting." When it comes out remains a mystery, however; Walsh says the album has been finished since May and the band is waiting for EMI to decide on a release date."It's definitely frustrating when you've got a finished record you want to get out and promote," Walsh acknowledges, "But we're keeping ourselves as busy as we can." That includes opening for the Police on its U.K. dates this month as well as performances at the Isle of Wight Festival and Hard Rock Calling in Britain and the Cactus Festival in Belgium. Source: billboard.com