It’s been a great summer for fans of the Internet, as Syd, Steve Lacy, and drummer Chris Crispy all released new solo albums on July 17. But there’s even more in store: The boundary-pushing R&B group are putting the finishing touches on their fifth album, set to release in early 2027. “It started extremely slow, and then it all started to come together pretty quickly,” Syd tells Rolling Stone. She gives credit to bandmate Matt Martians for holding down the fort: “While me, Steve, and Chris were working on solo stuff, Matt was at the lake house writing this out.”
Typically, when the band creates music, they collectively produce together, with Syd taking on most of the songwriting. But there were a few changes this go-round, such as Martians jumping into the lyrical driver’s seat, allowing his bandmates time to finish their respective projects and plan their tours. “Matt was just like, ‘I know y’all busy as shit,’” says Syd. “A lot of [the album] still uses my melodies that we freezed out, but Matt wrote the lyrics. Even Matt’s melodies, it came out so great. It’s things that I would have never written or come up with. It’s just super fire. I’m really excited.”
The band has also gone through some restructuring, with their bass player, Patrick Paige II, leaving the lineup. “Patrick decided to spread his wings and go solo without us,” Syd tells Rolling Stone. “It was really hard. Thankfully, there’s no malice or beef. Just something in his heart said he needed to go and we’re just gonna try and support him as best we can from here.”
Losing Paige caused the group to really sit down and consider what they were doing for the upcoming project. “I think that is what kind of got the ball rolling again,” Syd says. “When a monkey wrench gets thrown into the play, you have to start finding solutions.”
The group’s answer was to bring on bass player Simba Scott and keyboardist Daniel Abraham Jr., both of whom tour with Syd’s solo band, and are heavily credited throughout her most recent album, Beard. “The two of them are their own duo as well, so we’re adding,” says Syd. “They’re all over the album.”
When Syd met with Rolling Stone at the end of June, a couple of weeks before her, Lacy’s, and Chris’ trifecta release, the band was in New York for an interview before linking back up in L.A. to record the last two songs for the Internet record. They plan to use the remainder of summer to finalize the album before Syd departs for the European leg of her Beard tour at the end of August .
“Between this new album [Beard] and the next Internet album, I took it a step further,” she says. “I feel really blessed to have two different outlets as an artist, a band and a solo thing. I made a point, during this era, to really draw the lines between Syd and the Internet, to make it more defined. You can’t book me and get an Internet show — and you also can’t book the Internet and get a Syd show.”
