The Offspring is eyeballing some older material as the opening gambit for its next album.

Guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman tells Billboard.com that frontman Dexter Holland recently sat down with producer Bob Rock -- who produced 2008's "Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace," the Offspring's first new album in five years -- to start plotting the follow-up. "They kinda went over a couple of things that were left off the last record," he reports, "and songs that were even left off 'Splinter' or maybe even 'Conspiracy of One' and kind of looked at some things with free eyes and see if there was anything there that can be worked on."

Rad more at Billboard.com.

Switching labels and playing its 1988 masterpiece "Daydream Nation" in its entirety two years ago got Sonic Youth "excited" about making its just-released new album, "The Eternal," according to guitarist Lee Ranaldo.

Ranaldo tells Billboard.com that while the decidedly non-nostalgic group "had to be dragged kicking and screaming" into the "Daydream Nation" idea for shows celebrating the 2007 deluxe edition reissue of the album, the endeavor had a profound effect on he and his bandmates.

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