Cage The Elephant Overcome Self Doubt

There's always the fear of a "sophomore slump" in music. While writing songs for the new Cage The Elephant record, "Thank You, Happy Birthday", singer Matt Shultz had to be convinced by the other members of the band that the songs he brought to the table were well worth it. See more on this story and what songs he didn't think were good enough to be CTE songs after the jump!

"Cage The Elephant frontman Matt Shultz has revealed he had to be convinced to release a host of new songs after being plagued by self-doubt as the band recorded their second album.The Kentucky rockers' admit they felt as if they lost their sound as they worked on a follow-up to their self-titled debut album which, although a slow starter, has gone on to sell over 500,000 copies worldwide.

And Shultz admits he took some serious persuading from his brother, guitarist Brad, to even record the tracks – two of which have ended up on their forthcoming album Thank You Happy Birthday. "Initially there were a couple of songs I wrote which I brought to everyone and thought they'd either shoot them down or say they were good but not our style -- but Brad said we had to record them," Matt told RockAAA.

"There were actually four songs I was convinced the band should forget but Brad was absolutely adamant we should record them: Shake Me Down, Rubber Ball and two B-Sides: Carry Me In and Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, and I'm glad he convinced me."

From Anti Music