Blind Melon re-forms with new singer

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NEW YORK, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. band Blind Melon has re-formed with a new lead singer replacing Shannon Hoon, who died 11 years ago.

Billboard reports that Travis Warren, a 25-year-old from Amarillo, Texas, met two former Blind Melon members, guitarist Christopher Thorn and bassist Brad Smith, through a friend.

The reunion became a serious idea after Smith sent another former member, guitarist Rogers Smith, a joke e-mail in the form of a press release.

"Brad wrote a fake press release and sent it to me -- it was saying how we were back together and how Travis had brought us together," Stevens told Billboard. "It was the first I'd heard of it. I called Brad and I was like, 'What do you mean? You got the band back together without me?'"

The group is working on a record, their first since "Soup" in 1995, with three new songs and some old material. Stevens said Warren's voice is in the same register as Hoon's, but his phrasing is different.

"On the old songs, he can sing them really well," Stevens said. "They are different, but he definitely was influenced by Shannon."