It would be easy to call The Winery Dogs a supergroup: Vocalist and guitarist Richie Kotzen made his mark with Poison and Mr. Big, bassist Billy Sheehan has been rocking for decades with Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big and others, and drummer Mike Portnoy was the co-founder of progressive metal superstars Dream Theater. But The Winery Dogs are so much more than a supergroup.

The seeds of The Winery Dogs were planted in 2011 when Sheehan and Portnoy were working on music together with a different guitarist and songwriter. When that didn’t gel, a mutual friend, “That Metal Show” host and consummate music fan, Eddie Trunk, suggested they contact Kotzen and see if he was interested in forming a band. “We all thought that was a brilliant idea,” Portnoy says. “We were looking for that super gifted guitar player, singer and songwriter -- and that’s Richie.”

The musicians got together in Kotzen’s rehearsal studio in January 2012 and the first day they jammed, they wrote three songs, including the album tracks “One More Time,” and “Six Feet Deeper.” A month later, they reconvened and wrote five more tunes. From there, it was just a matter of fulfilling other musical obligations before they could get together and start recording the album. “At that point we were all gung-ho into it,” Portnoy says. “That summer we got together and we began recording in August 2012. That’s when the bulk of the recording was done as well as the writing of the remaining six tracks. We reconvened in December to finish the vocals and the last touches of overdubbing and mixed it in January 2013.”

“We’re so proud of everything on this album,” Sheehan concludes.” We can’t wait to share it with everyone and spend a lot of time on the road. As much as we love these songs, we feel like the next record we make will be just as cool if not better because it will come out of playing together on the road and we’ll learn exactly what works and know what to do next. That’s another thing I’m really looking forward to.”