We’re still kind of making records in the idea that people are still listening to them from beginning to end, because there’s a whole journey there. It’s not like once you’ve heard three songs you kind of get the gist of the record.
I like the fact that as you go through, when the next track starts, you don’t know where it’s going to go or where it’s going to take you, because we’re kind of jumping all over the place. For me, it’s more about the experience. And it’s funny too, because we realized it’s one of the shorter records we’ve made. I think it’s under 50 minutes or something as a whole record.
It’s really kind of a little moment in time that we wanted to create. For us, it works better if you sit and listen to it from beginning to end in the order that we have it arranged.
Speaking of the record's song arrangement, how do you guys take the 50 or 60 tracks that you initially worked on and narrow them down to what makes the record?
It’s just kind of a process that happens on its own, in a way. We started out with 60 ideas and then we came to Nashville for the summer. And after we left Nashville, those 60 became 20. Then we came to L.A. to start recording, and you start to prioritize. “Okay, we want to do this, but these are the ones that we have to make sure we get done first.” And while you’re doing that, you’re writing new songs, as well.
As you go through, “This song that you just wrote is a lot better than this song than this one that I used to like, and these two kind of sound alike, but that one sounds like a better version of it, so I would go with this one instead of this one.”
And so, it’s kind of a democratic process with five guys, who all have a stake in this, and who all have tastes that we trust in music, just weighing in. And sometimes it would just come down to the vote. If four people really hated a song and one guy liked it, then the song doesn’t make it.
With the record currently streaming on iTunes, how have the responses and reactions been?
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