AceShowbiz -

As he first teased back in October last year, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Rod Stewart confirmed the release of his new album, which he described as "just a good, old-fashioned Rod Stewart album (with) a lot of mandolin and acoustic (guitar) and fiddles and good storytelling, I believe, too." The forthcoming album is his first recording under Capitol Records after releasing his holiday album "Merry Christmas, Baby" last year on Verve.

Capitol previewed seven songs from the set for a group of journalists in New York City last Thursday, March 7. Entitled "Time", the new album is his first set of all-new material since 2001 and credits long-time collaborator Jim Cregan for inspiring it.

"About a year ago, I was sitting at my house in England, and [Cregan] came around and said, 'Come on, let's try to write a song,' " Stewart revealed about the motivation for the new album. "And I said, 'No, I can't be bothered. Those days are over.' But we sat down, I started humming a melody and he took it away and sent it back and said, 'Listen, this is pretty good,' so I wrote some words for it and ever since then it's just been flowing like a river."

Although a tracklist is yet to be finalized, the album is set to be released on May 7.