We also demoed the record twice before we actually recorded it, so we could concentrate solely on what it should sound like. Everything was written before. If nothing else, we were almost over-prepared this time around, because we rushed the last album so much. We decided that we didn't want to do it that way and we didn't want to make the same album over and over again. We took time to ask ourselves, "How are we going to make the best record?"
MPP: So how long has the band been together?
FM: Seven years ago we started. We came out with our first record in 2002, and then I joined the band in 2003.
MPP: Do you think your fanbase is changing?
FM: Yeah. I think a lot of the people who were listening to the first record, Tell All Your Friends, they were 16 then. They're 21 now. We realize that your tastes change when you're not in high school anymore; maybe you listen to the instruments more. So we wanted to grow with our fanbase, and of course we're picking up new people. One of the ways to do that was to try and play better than on the first record. The songs were what the band wanted. We created a unified tradition that caught on quite well. We got to start playing as tightly as we can, even more so on Louder Now, and we took our playing up a step. On "Spin" [a track off Louder Now], it's some of the best playing Mark [O'Connell]'s ever done on the drums. He went back to his old drum teacher and got a few pointers and really played the heck out of his drums this year.
Some bands, when they get big, get lazy. Our philosophy was, we're the luckiest dudes in the world to be able to do this.
MPP: Where do you see the band five years from now?
FM: We feel we want to keep progressing musically and bring things that are interesting to us into our music. For us, the band will keep going as long as we're entertained by the music, as long as we feel passionate about what songs we play. We want to keep doing that as long as we can. We're continuing to evolve, and we aren't the band we started with. We like the music that we play. We aren't looking to change the style dramatically. We like the way we sound now, but we also want to keep growing because it keeps us interesting and interested.
Article comments