Five years can disappear bloody fast. When I last caught up with Joey Arena in March 2021, we spoke about his ARENA synthwave project, Sammy Hagar giving his blessing to Joey’s version of Van Halen’s “Dreams,” and an Outlier catalogue already holding enough material for multiple records.
Life has shifted more than either of us could have imagined since then, but Joey has never stopped creating. Outlier have continued building their identity one carefully constructed single, video and collaboration at a time. Now those years of work have come together through the band’s first full length album, Screamiere, while the new single “Digital Hell” and a deal with Oxide Records have already opened the door to whatever comes next.
Our reunion stretched into a wide ranging conversation about the music that shaped Joey, correcting the name that confused listeners for years, the purpose behind Screamiere, his stand against AI generated music, and why creative control mattered when signing a new record deal. We also went deep into Joey’s relationship with Chris Motionless, his songwriting work with Motionless In White, and the wild Vegas story behind Outlier’s reworking of Cypress Hill’s “(Rock) Superstar” with Sen Dog and Hyro The Hero.
FROM MICHAEL JACKSON TO GRUNGE
Taking Joey back to his earliest core musical memory uncovered two different starting points. Michael Jackson was the first artist he genuinely fell in love with as a listener. He was still very young when Bad was preparing to arrive, and those Michael Jackson cassette tapes became the beginning of a much wider relationship with music.
The moment that pushed him towards becoming a musician arrived a little later through Nirvana, Silverchair and the grunge movement. Joey was around nine years old when those sounds found him, but music was already deeply embedded in the family. His mother was a committed concertgoer with a book full of ticket stubs and stories of meeting artists including Steven Tyler, although Joey joked that there are some backstage details he would probably rather not hear.
That combination makes sense when you listen across the Outlier catalogue. Joey grew up absorbing pop spectacle, grunge honesty, hard rock, metal, hip hop and everything between. Outlier has never sounded interested in staying inside one comfortable genre box because Joey never learned to experience music that way.
WHY OVTLIER FINALLY BECAME OUTLIER
For years, the band used OVTLIER with a V. The choice came partly from branding and partly from necessity. Another act was using the name when Joey began the project, while the altered spelling made it easier to separate his music from books and other search results carrying the word “outlier.”
The Roman and Latin inspired V looked strong, but it created a different problem. Listeners began reading it as though the band were German, producing pronunciations that moved further and further away from the name Joey had intended.
With the team growing and a first full length album ready to collect the work of the previous era, the timing finally felt right to simplify the spelling. Outlier now says exactly what Joey always meant it to say.
SCREAMIERE BRINGS THE SINGLES ERA TOGETHER
Outlier’s only previous physical collection was the 2017 EP What Doesn’t Kill You. The band has repeatedly reprinted it because CDs continue to sell on tour, but Joey was ready to offer listeners something that reflected who Outlier had become since then.
The years between releases were hardly quiet. Outlier remained active throughout the pandemic and continued rolling out singles while touring was impossible. Joey embraced that format early because it allowed him to focus completely on each song, its production, artwork and visual world without rushing to finish an entire record around it.
That approach built a substantial catalogue, but it also left streaming pages crowded with individual releases and gave physical music fans no single place to find the modern Outlier story. Screamiere finally condenses that body of work into one complete package while leaving the original singles visible as a timeline of how the band reached this point.
The title blends a scream with a premiere, marking both Outlier’s first full length arrival and the beginning of a new chapter. Joey did not write the record around a rigid concept, but he recognised an emotional thread once the songs were placed together.
“For Screamiere, for this record, I feel like it’s the stuff that’s not discussed openly and vulnerably enough,” Joey explained.
Where What Doesn’t Kill You explored different forms of overcoming, Screamiere looks towards subjects people often reduce to a few familiar words without genuinely opening them up. Vulnerability, responsibility, inner conflict, addiction and the threat of technology all surface across the wider era, but Joey confirmed an important distinction during our conversation: “Digital Hell” does not appear on Screamiere.
“DIGITAL HELL” STARTS THE OXIDE RECORDS CHAPTER
While Screamiere closes the chapter built through Outlier’s independent run of singles, “Digital Hell” is the first step into the band’s future with Oxide Records.
The song confronts an age in which technology can connect two people on opposite sides of the world in real time while also consuming their attention, manipulating what they see and making reality increasingly difficult to recognise. Joey is not pretending every technological development is evil. He is questioning how much control people are willing to hand over before convenience becomes dependence.
His strongest concern is AI generated music and the gradual removal of human creativity from art. That conversation had already started in the video for “Crown,” featuring Joey Varela of VRSTY, which took inspiration from Bill & Ted and imagined musicians travelling through time to save music rather than the world.
For “Digital Hell,” Joey pushed the concept further by creating artwork in Photoshop that deliberately carried the flattened, artificial look people associate with AI. The point was to provoke a response, and it worked. A small number of listeners immediately accused Outlier of using the very technology the song opposed.
“I share the frustration, I love the anger,” Joey said. “Let’s redirect focus, though.”
He wanted people to wait, hear the song and understand what the imagery was saying before reacting to it. The misunderstanding became proof of the song’s wider argument: people are being trained to respond instantly, often before they have enough information to understand what is in front of them.
A RECORD DEAL BUILT AROUND CREATIVE CONTROL
Joey has lived through enough record contracts to know that a familiar label name means very little if the artist loses control of the work. Outlier’s arrangement with Oxide is not a traditional deal, and full creative control was essential.
Oxide founder Andrew Wetzel brings the perspective of both a businessman and the drummer of Attack Attack! to the relationship. Joey values that combination because Wetzel understands the creative side of the decisions being made while remaining alert to how quickly the modern music business changes.
Rather than waiting for his turn inside a crowded label schedule, Joey can continue releasing music at the pace Outlier has established. Wetzel is directly involved in the less glamorous work as well, helping organise metadata, connect platforms and repair the digital gaps that build up around an artist after years of independent releases.
The first six months of the partnership are already mapped out. Outlier plans to waterfall more singles, deliver some surprises through the quieter months of November and December, and release another collection during the first quarter of 2027. Joey currently expects that release to be an EP, although his constant writing means it could still grow into something larger.
THE CREATIVE TEAM KEEPS GROWING
Evan McKeever has been part of Outlier since Joey was travelling to Cleveland to build the earliest material inside a studio apartment. More than a decade later, their chemistry remains central to the band.
Joey described the speed at which they write together as almost ridiculous. Both understand where an idea needs to go, and Evan can help bring material written with other collaborators back into Outlier’s recognisable world. That role has grown into something close to executive production as Joey’s circle of writers and producers expands.
The current team also includes newer collaborators Cole Crevar and Lee Albrecht, while Joey’s long relationship with producer and former Ice Nine Kills member Justin “JD” deBlieck continues to connect different parts of his career.
Joey has no interest in protecting his ego by pretending he must create every detail alone. He actively wants people around him who can challenge his ideas and raise the standard of the finished music. Consistency, trust and a shared hunger matter more than whose name receives the most attention.
FROM “WARRIORS” TO MOTIONLESS IN WHITE
JD also played a crucial role in connecting Joey with Chris Motionless. Their wider circles already overlapped through Rochester musicians and Ice Nine Kills, but the friendship grew properly during the pandemic when music conversations were joined by nights playing Call of Duty.
Chris became a genuine advocate for Outlier, including the band in his SiriusXM Octane takeover and helping open the door to a much wider audience. When Joey and JD were working on “Warriors,” JD quietly sent the song to Chris before asking Joey how he would feel about a feature. The answer was an immediate yes.
Chris recorded the track and then turned up twice for the video after Joey decided the original shoot was not strong enough. That willingness to support the song beyond a guest vocal said plenty about the relationship developing behind it.
The connection has now come full circle through Motionless In White’s “Fight Like Hell.” Joey was invited to help flesh out early ideas, earning both a feature and songwriting credit while also contributing to other material from the same creative period.
“It’s very surreal,” Joey admitted. “Once you see your name with all these awesome names attached to it, you’re like, ‘Oh shit, I really am a part of this.’”
For somebody who has always wanted to build a broader career as a songwriter, having Motionless In White become the first major public reveal of that side of his work is one hell of a starting point.
WHAT ROCK AND METAL CAN LEARN FROM HIP HOP
Outlier’s reworking of Cypress Hill’s “(Rock) Superstar” brought Joey together with Sen Dog and Hyro The Hero, but the collaboration also gave him room to speak about a problem much larger than one cover song.
Cypress Hill were among the early artists who showed how naturally hip hop and heavy music could move together. Joey has always admired the way hip hop artists collaborate across different levels of their careers and use features to bring new talent forward. He believes rock and metal have too often allowed ego and gatekeeping to stand in the way of that same growth.
“Artists looking out for artists needs to be the model for rock and metal,” he said.
Joey aims high when he has an idea, and Sen Dog agreed to join the track almost immediately after hearing it. Hyro was brought in to deliver the energy required when the arrangement opened into its heavier section, with the timing of his US tour allowing Joey to fly him to Las Vegas for the video.
The chemistry on screen hides the fact that Joey met Sen Dog in person for the first time that morning. It also hides one of the funniest stories from the entire conversation.
Joey arrived in Vegas for a video called “(Rock) Superstar” and realised he had forgotten his jewellery. Hyro spotted a nearby pawn shop and helped bargain a gold chain down from well over a thousand dollars to $500. Joey has worn it ever since, carrying a permanent reminder of the day three artists from different worlds met in the desert and made the collaboration feel completely natural.
“I aim big, man,” Joey told me. “I aim big.”
That sentence may be the cleanest summary of where Outlier stands in 2026. Screamiere finally gives the band a full length document of everything built across the previous era, but Joey is already looking beyond it. “Digital Hell” has started the Oxide chapter, more music is mapped out, his work as a songwriter is reaching far outside his own band, and the first Screamiere event in Rochester is intended to become an annual platform with much larger plans still to be revealed.
Five years after our first conversation, Joey Arena is still hungry, still grounded and still willing to reach for ideas that look almost impossible from the outside. This time, however, the team around him is bigger, the path ahead is clearer and Outlier are no longer waiting for their first full length moment. It is here.
Screamiere is available now. “Digital Hell” is also streaming now as the opening statement from Outlier’s new chapter with Oxide Records.
Stream “Digital Hell”
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