Zach Black Returns to The Bubble with Chris “Frenchie” Smith for Upcoming Solo Record

Zach Black has officially begun recording the next chapter of his original music career, returning to The Bubble Recording Studio for a new body of work produced by longtime collaborator and Grammy-nominated producer Chris “Frenchie” Smith.

The sessions mark Black’s second record with Smith and The Bubble following SOULSEX, the acclaimed final studio album from his former project Souls Extolled. This time, however, Black enters the studio under his own name, bringing together the different musical identities that have defined his career into what he sees as his most personal project to date.

Recording began in earnest this summer following weeks of pre-production and full-band rehearsals. The bulk of the initial tracking took place across sessions in late July and early August, with Black returning to The Bubble for additional recording in late August as the project continues to evolve.

For Black, returning to Frenchie was an easy decision.

“Working with Frenchie on SOULSEX changed the way I thought about what a producer could be,” Black says. “He understood things about me as an artist that I don't think I fully understood about myself yet. He doesn't just record the band—he becomes part of the band. He gets involved with the songs, the arrangements, the performances, the identity of the record. Especially now that I'm putting everything under my own name, I couldn't imagine figuring out what this record is supposed to become with anybody else.”

Smith has spent decades as a fixture of the Austin recording community, producing and recording artists ranging from ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and the Toadies to Meat Puppets, Jet, Built to Spill, and numerous generations of Austin musicians.

The new sessions also solidify the group of musicians surrounding Black as the Zach Black project moves from its early live performances into a more permanent full-band identity.

The current studio lineup features guitarist Dave North, formerly of Austin psych-rock band The Cuckoos and currently an instructor at Austin School of Music; bassist Jack Pobe and drummer Dillon Murray, longtime members of Austin rock band Trace of Lime; and multi-instrumentalist Andy Leonard, formerly of Trouble in the Streets and currently active with Austin instrumental fusion group Psytrus.

The lineup developed organically rather than through a traditional audition process. Black initially performed with a rotating cast drawn from former Souls Extolled members and musicians throughout the Austin scene, often assembling different groups for cover performances, special events, and early showcases of his solo material.

Over time, North, Pobe, Murray, and Leonard emerged as Black's primary collaborators.

“What started with different gigs basically turned into, ‘These are the guys,’” Black says. “Once we started rehearsing the originals together, everybody's personality started getting into the songs. They're my songs, but what happens when these guys actually play them in a room is now part of what the music is.”

That live foundation is being combined in the studio with a much broader production palette. Rather than approaching the project strictly as a traditional live rock record, Black and the production team are experimenting with live performances alongside programmed elements, MIDI arrangements, layered instrumentation, and other production techniques developed throughout the songs' earlier demo stages.

The result is shaping up as a convergence of styles Black has explored separately throughout his career.

Punk and indie-rock guitars collide with reggae-rock grooves. Live rock instrumentation intersects with programmed production. Black moves between the powerhouse singing voice that has defined his stage performances and a rhythmic, hip-hop-influenced vocal delivery that has increasingly become a central part of his songwriting.

For Black, that collision is the point.

“This is probably the first project where I feel like all the different things I do vocally and musically are actually allowed to exist in the same place,” he says. “I'm a rock singer, but I'm also a rapper. Reggae is part of me. Punk is part of me. Hip-hop is part of me. I don't want to make a record where I have to pick one of those things and pretend the others aren't there.”

The recording follows a year of rebuilding Black's original project in public. New material first began appearing in live performances earlier in 2026, including Austin showcases and Black's self-titled full-band debut at Hotel Vegas, where new songs appeared alongside revived material from the Souls Extolled catalog.

That connection will continue going forward. While the new recordings represent the first studio project created specifically under the Zach Black name, Black has made clear that Souls Extolled—and particularly material from SOULSEX—remains part of the project's musical DNA and live repertoire.

For now, Black and the band are continuing work with Smith and engineer Brendan Sanders as the recordings move through additional production and refinement.

Release details, song titles, and the final configuration of the project will be announced at a later date.

What is certain is that after years of stylistic experimentation, different lineups, and music released under different banners, Zach Black is finally bringing those threads together under one name.

The next record is officially underway.