Randy Blythe has had a busy year in 2014. He finished writing his first book, starred in an action comedy film and premiered a must-see documentary with his band, Lamb of God.

Speaking of Lamb of God, we know everybody else in the band is writing new material. So what’s the status of the new music? Blythe was just interviewed by Noisey where he offered an update on the progress of the new material:

Lamb of God is playing a bunch of big gigs this year, and sooner or later we’ll write an album. What the guys have been writing sounds pretty monstrous thus far. In the immediate we’re going to Soundwave in Australia in February, which will be warm and awesome. It’ll be our third Soundwave. Going to Indonesia after that for a few days, hopefully I’ll get some time to surf. We’ll be doing some bigger gigs in the summer too. We had to take some time off because the tour cycle took about three years, like writing recording touring, and then I got arrested. The whole legal thing took over a year of my life, during which we toured in the states and afterwards we finished up the touring cycle. It was a rough, rough year so thank god it’s behind me. So we got done touring South Africa in January and I started working on my book, which should come out sometime in 2015, it’s being edited now. It’s a book called “Dark Days,” which is basically about what happened over in the Czech Republic. My editor sent me back the manuscript, so I have to approve edit that by January. So that should be out sometime in the summer maybe, not sure how long it’s gonna take.

It’s exciting to see there is progress being made on the new album. I would say the band would likely take the first half of the year to complete the album, especially when you factor in those breaks they would have for playing festival gigs. I think booking these festival gigs will give the band the opportunity to escape from the studio and stretch their legs out a bit, making them an even tighter unit (if that’s possible) for when they return to the studio.

A new album and a book release aren’t the only things on deck for Blythe in 2015. The primary focus of the interview was Blythe’s photography and he will be showing it off at an upcoming gallery show in New York. Blythe is also composing music for a ballet:

I have a gallery exhibit photo show in New York on May 2nd at Sacred Art Gallery in Soho. So I’m gonna be showing there, gonna be busy between now and then with printing, making everything print ready which is something I haven’t worked with a lot. I’m composing a new piece for the Richmond Ballet, last year a friend of mine choreographed a piece for the Richmond Ballet, and I did the music. Had Alex from Testament add some guitar parts, because he’s really great. It’s really cool to do music for the ballet because they don’t fucking know who Lamb of God is, they don’t give a fuck about heavy metal, but they dig the stuff I did. My buddy is choreographing another piece, and he wanted to use me again and they were totally stoked. Creativity is in overdrive.

For those curious about how Blythe got into photography, check out the full interview on Noisey.