After twenty years together and nine studio albums, one might think moe. had pretty much done it all. Yet the famously independent-minded jam band is reaching for new ground on its latest project, What Happened To The LA LAs  (out January 24th on Sugar Hill Records).

To begin with, moe. has signed with Sugar Hill Records, the band’s first label sojourn in nearly a decade. The group also chose to work with an outside producer for the first time since 1998's Tin Cans & Car Tires, with John Travis (Kid Rock, Social Distortion, No Doubt) getting the call.

“For most of our career we’ve done everything on our own in a very cottage industry, home-y kind of way,” notes Chuck Garvey, who contributes guitar and vocals to moe. Other members of the band are Vinnie Amico (drums), Rob Derhak (bass, vocals), Jim Loughlin (percussion, Malletkat) and Al Schnier (guitar, vocals, keyboards, mandolin).

Continues Garvey, “With most of our recordings, we’ve gotten the equipment together, we’ve paid for everything ourselves, we’ve produced it ourselves and we’ve had complete control over it. For this album we actually made the leap of putting ourselves in someone else’s hands to help us come out with something different.”

What Happened To The LA LAs features 10 tracks of compact melodies, each textured by moe.’s signature rock riffs and flourishes, and backed by a roller coaster ride of pulsing drums. It’s that pure moe. sound, which the band’s ardent fans -- affectionately dubbed moe.rons -- have come to love over the band’s decades of industrious touring.

Also catch them at The Independent on February 2nd and 3rd!