Beartooth frontman Caleb Shomo joins Scott Penfold on this week’s Loaded Radio Podcast to talk about Pure Ecstasy, the band’s sixth album, out August 28 via Fearless Records. It’s the first Beartooth record Shomo didn’t build entirely alone — Jordan Fish co-produced, Misha Mansoor helped birth the title track, and drummer Connor Denis actually played the drums. It’s also the first one he’s made since telling the world who he is. Listen to the full episode below.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE NOW:
Caleb Shomo goes deep on Pure Ecstasy, the reaction to “Free,” and what changed when he finally let somebody else into the room on The Loaded Radio Podcast. Then Raven Le Rouge of Wichita’s Waking The Sleeper stops by for Fresh Meat. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play, or hit play above.
For 14 years, Beartooth was one guy in a room
Here’s the thing people forget about Beartooth. It started as a studio project. Caleb Shomo walked out of Attack Attack!, went home to Columbus, and made records by himself — guitars, bass, drums, vocals, production, all of it. Five albums deep and that never really changed. The band you saw destroying a stage on the record-breaking Surface tour was a live unit. The band you heard on the record was one man being extremely stubborn.
Pure Ecstasy is the first time that’s not true.
Connor Denis played the drums, tracked at NRG in Los Angeles. Oshie Bichar, Zach Huston and Will Deely all got their hands on it. And for the first time in Beartooth’s existence, Shomo brought in an outside co-producer: Jordan Fish, formerly of Bring Me The Horizon, a guy whose entire career has been about making enormous, chaotic ideas make sense together.
So on the show I asked him the obvious question. What makes a control freak hand somebody else a key to the house?
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Misha Mansoor, the dumbest heaviest chugs, and an album opener
The title track came out of a session with Misha Mansoor, which on paper is a strange pairing — Periphery’s riff scientist and metalcore’s most emotionally exposed songwriter. In practice it produced exactly what you’d hope. Shomo described the session as being born from “the dumbest heaviest chugs we could chug”, cut in a studio with absurd loudspeakers and no particular plan.
Then it went home to Jordan Fish, got expanded, and there was no argument about where it belonged. Track one.
That’s the shape of this whole record. Ideas that started as instinct, then got handed to someone with a different set of ears. “Eyes Closed,” the album’s second track and its fourth single, was written from the ground up with Fish and both of them knew at the demo stage it was landing. Fish also pushed him somewhere Beartooth records have historically refused to go: specificity. Less hiding behind vague language. Say the thing.
Which brings us to the part everyone has an opinion about.
The reaction to “Free”
“Free” arrived in February and it broke the internet in a way Beartooth singles don’t normally break the internet. New sound. New look. A video that made it very clear something in Caleb Shomo’s life had shifted. He called it the most honest depiction of his soul he’d likely ever make, and a chunk of the internet responded by being the internet.
By late May he’d addressed it directly, saying plainly that he’s a proudly gay man and that he’d been reckoning with it privately for a long time. He deleted his Instagram somewhere in the middle of all of it. He’s since talked openly — on the Disrespectfully podcast and in a Kerrang! cover story — about growing up as the son of a preacher who was the son of a preacher, about therapy, about the end of his marriage, and about how little visibility there is for queer artists in heavy music.
I’m not going to pretend that’s a small thing in this genre, because it isn’t. But here’s what I actually wanted to know, and what we spent real time on: he’s said he tries not to read the reception to his own work. How do you actually hold that wall up when the reception isn’t about the song at all?
His answer is the best three minutes of this episode.
Pure Ecstasy is still a Beartooth record
Worth saying loudly, because the discourse has a way of swallowing the music: this thing rips.
Eleven tracks — Pure Ecstasy, Eyes Closed, Bullshit, Beautiful Again, Stadiums, Free, Sorry, Lose You To Find Me, You, For Me By Me, Made It. It’s the first Beartooth album not on Red Bull Records after more than a decade, landing on Fearless. Shomo has said he wants it to be the building blocks for the rest of his life, and he’s been more willing to call it his best work out loud than he’s ever been about anything he’s made — which, if you’ve followed this band since “Riptide” and the self-flagellating era before it, is genuinely new behaviour.
We also got into “Bullshit,” and the morning it nearly didn’t come out.
The AI story
The band hired a designer to animate the “Bullshit” lyric video. They explicitly asked for no AI. The designer used AI anyway, denied it, and the whole thing got flagged on upload hours before the single dropped.
So Caleb and his brother Luke rebuilt the video themselves. In a day. Luke also did the Pure Ecstasy album artwork, so this is now a family operation on both ends.
Ask him about what that says about the state of the business and you get a pretty unvarnished answer. It’s in the episode.
Where you can see them
The Pure Ecstasy world tour runs Europe and the UK first, September 17 in Frankfurt through October 6 in Glasgow, with Silverstein and Kingdom Of Giants. North America picks up November 11 in Boston and runs to December 19 in Wheatland, California, with Don Broco, Magnolia Park and Windwaker. Australia gets them from January 26, 2027, alongside Fit For A King and Volumes.
Canadians, I asked. I asked twice. You’ll want to hear the answer.
Fresh Meat: Raven Le Rouge of Waking The Sleeper
After Caleb, we flip over to Fresh Meat, the segment where I give fifteen minutes to a band you probably haven’t heard yet but should.
This week it’s Raven Le Rouge, vocalist and co-founder of Waking The Sleeper out of Wichita, Kansas. They formed in 2016, built the whole thing on the road — 14 states and counting — and their debut concept album 7 Deadly Sins, originally out in 2018 and structured around Dante and the deadly sins themselves, got a second life when it was re-released in 2024 through Sony’s The Orchard. Singles “Wrath” and “Greed” have been charting ever since.
They’ve shared stages with Drowning Pool, Dope, Otep and Combichrist, played Rocklahoma’s Darkside Stage three years running and Blue Ridge Rock Festival in 2023, and Raven took the RRR New And Upcoming Band Of The Year award home in 2017. We wrote about them here a while back, and they’ve kept moving since.
In the segment she gets into building a metal band in Kansas, what fronting this thing has cost her, and what’s coming next.
TL;DR
- This week’s Loaded Radio Podcast: Caleb Shomo of Beartooth, plus Raven Le Rouge of Waking The Sleeper in Fresh Meat.
- The album: Pure Ecstasy, out August 28, 2026, 11 tracks, on Fearless Records — Beartooth’s sixth and their first away from Red Bull Records.
- The big shift: first Beartooth album Shomo didn’t play everything on. Jordan Fish co-produced, Misha Mansoor helped birth the title track, Connor Denis drummed.
- The other big shift: Shomo came out publicly in May 2026 and made this record on the other side of it.
- The lyric video mess: the hired designer used AI on “Bullshit” against instructions; Caleb and his brother Luke rebuilt it in a day.
- Tour: Europe/UK from September 17, North America from November 11, Australia from January 26, 2027. No Canadian date announced yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Beartooth’s Pure Ecstasy released?
Pure Ecstasy is out August 28, 2026, on Fearless Records. It’s Beartooth’s sixth studio album and their first for the label after more than a decade with Red Bull Records. The tracklist runs Pure Ecstasy, Eyes Closed, Bullshit, Beautiful Again, Stadiums, Free, Sorry, Lose You To Find Me, You, For Me By Me and Made It.
Who produced Beartooth’s Pure Ecstasy?
Caleb Shomo produced it with Jordan Fish, the first time he’s co-produced a Beartooth album with anyone outside the band. Misha Mansoor of Periphery was involved in the sessions that produced the title track. It’s also the first Beartooth album where Shomo didn’t play every instrument himself — drummer Connor Denis performed drums across the record at NRG Recording Studios.
Did Caleb Shomo come out?
Yes. In late May 2026, following speculation that intensified around the “Free” video, Shomo publicly stated that he is a proudly gay man. He has since discussed it at length, including his religious upbringing, therapy and the end of his marriage, on the Disrespectfully podcast and in a Kerrang! cover story. He has said Pure Ecstasy is the most honest record he’s made.
Why was the Beartooth “Bullshit” lyric video pulled?
The designer the band hired used AI to make it despite the band explicitly asking them not to, then denied it, and the video was flagged when it was uploaded. Beartooth scrapped it hours before the single’s release. Caleb Shomo and his brother Luke rebuilt the video themselves the same day. Luke also created the Pure Ecstasy album artwork.
Is Beartooth touring in 2026?
Yes. The Pure Ecstasy world tour hits Europe and the UK from September 17 in Frankfurt through October 6 in Glasgow with Silverstein and Kingdom Of Giants, then North America from November 11 in Boston to December 19 in Wheatland, California, with Don Broco, Magnolia Park and Windwaker. An Australian run with Fit For A King and Volumes begins January 26, 2027. No Canadian dates have been announced.
Beartooth is one of the few bands where the record and the person are the same document — and Caleb Shomo just rewrote both. What did you make of Pure Ecstasy? Drop a comment and tell us where it lands for you. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
The post Caleb Shomo Tells The Loaded Radio Podcast He Deleted His Instagram, Blew Up His Own Rules, And Made The First Beartooth Album That’s Actually Him appeared first on Loaded Radio.
