Bad Company Reported to Be Working on New Album With Paul Rodgers

If rumors are to be believed, Bad Company are working on a new album and are preparing to tour. This would be their first album with original singer Paul Rodgers in nearly 35 years.

The word comes from MediaMass, who cite an anonymous source as saying that they have about eight songs recorded. “It’s still in the early stages,” the source said. “They got security on the doors to ensure no-one hears a whisper.”

Rodgers left Bad Company for a solo career after 1982’s Rough Diamonds. After a few years’ hiatus, original members Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke brought in Brian Howe to replace Rodgers. But after four studio albums, including the platinum Holy Water, Howe quit in 1994. After two more records with Robert Hart, Rodgers reunited with the band and cut four new songs in 1998 that were tacked on to 1998’s The Original Bad Company Anthology.

Since then, the band has toured regularly, although original bassist Boz Burrell died in 2006. A full-page advertisement in the Winter 2016 issue of Red Hot Rock magazine says that a North American tour featuring Rodgers, Ralphs and Kirke will happen at some point in 2016.

Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock last year, Rodgers said Burrell’s death had been a big reason why the band hadn’t recorded anything. “Well, you know, the immediate problem with that is that we don’t have Boz,” he said. “Boz was a good part of what we did. It’s hard to realize it, [but] you take one member out and, yeah, you can limp along and you can do something similar, but I don’t know. That would be one aspect, [we would need] the right bass player, actually, that’s probably what I’m trying to say. And the right material and the will to do it. We’d have to see if that was there. I’m not sure. But I keep an open mind.”
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