Los Angeles-based rap/rock outfit Hollywood Undead are set to release their second major label album, American Tragedy. The album hits US stores on April 5 via A&M/Octone Records, and is the follow-up to the band’s successful 2008 debut, Swan Songs. This album will be the group’s first with ex-Lorene Drive and American Idol contestant, new lead singer Danny Murillo. Murillo’s songwriting and singing abilities have been showcased on the first two singles, “Coming Back Down” and “Hear Me Now”. Production duties for the second album once again go to Don Gilmore, with added help from Kevin Rudolf on a few tracks. On Gilmore, the band sounds confident about a winning formula. “We wouldn’t have gone him if we didn’t like it the first time, you know?” vocalist Johnny 3 Tears says. The production may have been the same, but the songwriting, however, was a bit different. “Half of [the first record] was written before we ever got signed, so for this one we had a lot less time to get a lot more material ready in that time period, so we had to hustle a little more and record a lot harder, but I think that contributed to good [material] coming out of it,” said Johnny. When asked about the reasoning behind the band donning masks at their live shows and photo shoots, Johnny replied, “Well this wasn’t our first rodeo when it came to being in a band, and we’d done the whole number before, with doing photos and getting our demo out there. On this one, I remember we were going to do some photos, and we just decided to try it. If you go through any music magazine and you look at the photos, you can’t really tell them apart. It’s all just a bunch of guys that all kind of look the same, with tattoos and such, and you could mix and match the guys and still not tell the difference. There was an artistic aspect of just looking at the band, where the photos are going to be as engaging as the music itself. And now we have to wear masks all the time,” Johnny said. “It wasn’t because we were trying to hide our identities, we do interviews without the masks, but we do wear them at live shows.” Hollywood Undead will be hitting the road on their headlining Revolt! tour, with supporting acts 10 Years, Drive A and New Medicine. Dates run from March 26 through May 28 and run throughout much of the US and Canada. Their album American Tragedy will be out digitally and in stores on April 5.