Bad Wolves got a taste of crossover success when their cover of the Cranberries' "Zombie" landed on the Billboard Hot 100 last year. But now that the group is starting work on their next album, the band's lead guitarist, Doc Coyle, says being known to some mainstream music fans only as "the 'Zombie' band" is better than out-and-out obscurity.

In conversation with Australia's Loud Magazine, the Bad Wolves guitarist discusses the diversity of material the group are currently creating for the follow-up to their 2018 debut, Disobey, while also offering his own take on a possible future tabbed as a one-hit-wonder.

"I’ll say this – it’s better to be ‘the ‘Zombie’ band’ than the band no one’s ever heard of," Coyle explains with a laugh. "So it’s better to be known for something than nothing."

Further, the musician thinks criticisms of Bad Wolves' Cranberries-fueled success comes mainly from those "only really upset because the cover was successful," with Coyle equating the group's situation to that of the often maligned but huge-selling Nickelback.

"The Internet is not the real world," he says. "If the Internet was the real world, we would be playing a shack right now with Nickelback. Because Nickelback is the most shit-talked band that people love to hate, but every show is sold out and there’s 12,000 people there. So why do those things not equate? How is that in this realm, everyone loves to talk shit about them, but when you go to the show it’s sold out?"

Last month, Bad Wolves revealed that they already have 21 new songs in consideration for their upcoming album. Speaking to Loud about their most recent work, Coyle added, "There's stuff that's probably heavier, as or more heavy than the last record. We have four or five songs that are really trying to bring the beef, the shit you can throw weights around to. [Laughs] And then there's some really catchy, kind of more mainstream stuff to cover that end of it, and a lot of stuff in the middle. For us, it's so great that we were able on our first album to be diverse out of the gate — have a lot of ups and downs, and have a ballad, because that way you don't have to kind of warm your audience up to it; they already know what to expect. So we can kind of do whatever we want."

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