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After more than two decades as the lead singer of Jersey punk kings the Bouncing Souls, Greg Attonito will move into uncharted territory this summer when he releases his first solo album, "Natural Disaster," Tuesday.
Attonito, a Basking Ridge native now living in Idaho, said he can't explain why now was the right time to make his solo debut.
"I have been recording stuff at home for over 10 years and I never found the moment to be like, ‘OK, now's the time,' and I can't even tell you why I just suddenly started to get motivated and be like, ‘OK, I think it's time now, I think it's time to actually do a release so let's focus on what songs I want to actually make into this recording, what kind of release I want to do,' " Attonito explained. "And once I got motivated it was fun, it was just like, I can't even tell you, I don't even know why, just following my intuition, I guess."
The singer will mark the release of "Natural Disaster" - a mellow set of six acoustic tunes that recasts Attonito's distinct voice in a Jack Johnson-like surf pop mold - with a show Tuesday at Watermark in Asbury Park.
While old-school Souls fans may be surprised by the record's laid-back charm, Attonito said that for him, the album's mellowness "is kind of obvious" after being in the business of making high-energy punk rock for more than 20 years.
"When you're rocking loud, you're getting a certain frequency, and when you get quiet and gentle you get a whole other vibe, and so as a musician you're going to want to explore it, that's why it's a natural thing," Attonito explained, citing a long tradition of punks going acoustic that includes X's John Doe, Kevin Seconds of Seven Seconds and Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan.
"Even Joe Strummer and his whole solo thing was not totally acoustically oriented but a little more acoustically oriented than the Clash stuff was," he said. "And I think it's a natural thing, you express different frequencies and you get different energy and a different tone with a quieter acoustic instrument."
While he has solo material on his mind, Attonito remains committed to the Souls: he made time for this interview while the band was in Boston as part of a series of shows where it performs all eight of its albums over four nights. The band's run of discography shows at New York City's Highline Ballroom runs through Saturday.
Other cities set to get the full discography treatment this year include Philadelphia (July 13 to 16), Vienna, Austria (Aug. 9 to 12) and Los Angeles (Nov. 9 to 12), but the concept began in the band's adopted hometown of Asbury Park at February's Home for the Holidays shows at the Stone Pony, which were rescheduled after being snowed out in December.
"Once we were rehearsing and the conversation (of doing discography shows in other cities) came up, we were like, ‘We're doing all this work and learning this stuff, so it would be kind of a waste to just do it once and not do it again,' " Attonito said.
Attonito revealed that the band is also now at work on new material.
"We're at that point (where) we have a handful of these new ideas and we're kind of throwing around how we're going to record them, how we're going to release them," Attonito said, "and none of that's solidified yet but we're keeping it open and trying to have fun with it, we'll see where it takes us."
Greg Attonito: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 12, Watermark, 800 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park, tickets are $5; admission is free if you purchase a copy of “Natural Disaster” at the door. For more information, visit http://www.chunksaah.com
