Why do you think it took so long to make this record?
Matt: When the band broke up in 2005, what we really should have done is taken a couple of years off, and that’s basically what we did in 2011. We did a whole world tour and were like ‘Okay, we need to stop for a while.’ Jim went back to school, Ryan [Pope, drums] moved to France, I did solo stuff, Rob [Pope , bass] played in Spoon and James [Dewees, keys] played in My Chem. So by the time we’d gotten around to being like ‘Let’s do this again’, then it takes a couple of years to get the engines to turn over.
Jim: I graduated college and we did our 20 year anniversary tour, and kind of after that I think we were just going to be weekend warriors. I thought I’d use my degree and do whatever with that, but then came to the realisation that I really like playing music a lot more, and I think we all came to the realisation that we can still do this. At the time, I don’t even know if we thought we’d make another record – we just thought we’d play some shows.
Matt: If all we’re going to do is play the old songs, then doing the festival scene or weekend warrior scene is all we’d really want to do with it. If we’re going to do this for real, we need to be making some new art.
Jim: And if we’re going to do it, let’s do it as 100% as we can. It’s a more mature 100%, not-sleeping-on-the-floors-of-vans going for it!
Right, because when you started, you literally were kids. And now you’re not. Your first ever gig was the supporting Mineral the same day as your high school prom, right?
Matt: We did. You can find that show on YouTube, actually.
Jim: We went out to dinner first, then took the limousine to the all-ages club and played. Matt had already graduated the year before and was in college, so he helped break everything down, and then we took the limo from our show to our prom. I remember the show more than my actual prom!
Matt: Did you go to prom with Corby?
Jim: I did. I had just met my wife right before. It’s crazy.
So all these years later, what does this band mean to you now? How has the focus of your songs shifted – it seems like this record is more about external influences and the state of the world as opposed to the ‘emotional’ songs about relationships and friendships that defined those earlier years.
Matt: I think those ‘emotional’ feelings that we get made fun of so much, I don’t think those go away when you get older, but they become more well-rounded and less one-dimensional. We still feel very strongly about things, it’s just way more complicated than it as when you’re 19.
Jim: I think one thing that’s stayed the same is that we’ve always been a sincere band. Whatever we do, there’s sincerity to it. And you can sniff out insincere sincerity…
Matt: This is Jim’s new favourite term!
Jim: Like people use being sincere as a gimmick. Which is kind of what emo turned into. But I think we were never anything but ourselves and I hope that comes across in everything that we’ve done.