Michigan-based hard rock quartet TAPROOT has inked a deal with Victory Records. The band is currently working on material for a new album, tentatively due next spring/summer.

TAPROOT's latest CD, "Our Long Road Home", sold around 7,700 copies in the United States in its first week of release to enter The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 65. The follow-up to 2005's "Blue-Sky Research" was released through Velvet Hammer, the label founded by the management company of the same name (SYSTEM OF A DOWN, DEFTONES). Working with producer Tim Patalan (SPONGE, LOVEDRUG), the band penned more than fifty songs for the album, twelve of which were recorded in a converted barn just a few minutes down the road from vocalist/guitarist Stephen Richards' home.

After recording three albums for a major label, "Our Long Road Home" was TAPROOT's first as an indie band, and as Richards told it at the time, that suited them just fine. "Budget cuts and political shifts cost us our support system at the old place," he said. "When our A&R guy lost his job, we knew it was time for a change. A few years ago, that might've been a scary thing, but it's a brand-new world out there now for bands like us. We no longer have to rely on a big record company to make things happen and that's exciting. We made this record without the pressure of having to write four smash hit singles hanging over our heads and that was liberating. Of course," he laughed, "there are a few songs on the album that could do really well on radio."

TAPROOT's "Wherever I Stand" video can be viewed below. The clip was shot with director Jus10.