Monster Magnet Offshoot Riotgod Set Album Release

In 2007 Monster Magnet's Bob Pantella and Jim Baglino created their own alternate universe under the RIOTGOD banner, inviting guitarist Garrett Sweeny and the estranged vocalist known only as Sunshine to travel the cosmos with them. Their achieved collective goal is RIOTGOD, their self-titled debut album containing some of the most energetic, recognizable and high quality Hard Rock this side of Mars.

Drummer and founding member Bob Pantella spoke about the formation of RIOTGOD: "It was just Jim and myself, you know, just spending a lot of time on the road and we just had a lot of music that we wanted to create. With Monster Magnet, that's not really the case for us sometimes. That's more of Dave's thing, so we really just wanted to get together and do something a bit more on our own. There's a lot of time off and personally we like to work a lot so, the desire to do more began building up over the last couple of years.

"We wanted to try our own thing and call our own shots with musical direction and stuff. We talked about it for years and it took a long time to really find the right people and get going. I've always had my recording studio, so it was easy in that aspect but it was hard to find the right ingredients-you know, sounds, personalities and such. We know nothing's perfect but you want to get people into the same head space. My singer Sunshine, who I love, the guy is a crazy son of a bitch, but musically we're in the same place. His lyrics are amazing, and he's got a great voice. He can pretty much sing anything that you can think of. I give him the music, and by the next day, it's ready to be recorded. It gels with what I'm writing perfectly. This is a great band to take us to a different level. Being in Monster Magnet is an awesome opportunity to launch other things for us."