Anarbor

Since their signing with Hopeless Records, Arizona rockers Anarbor have enjoyed a steady rise. The upcoming release of their sophomore album 'Burnout' and the band's non-stop touring schedule should certainly help this rise continue. Killyourstereo.com caught up with frontman Slade Echeverria to chat about the process of the new record.

So let's chat about 'Burnout,' what should we be expecting from it?

Basically, it's our sophomore record and it took us awhile to come up with another record after our previous record, but this one isn't too different to what we have come up with in the past. [But] we have taken a couple of different steps towards writing it though. We worked with different song-writers and different producers for the songs, we wrote something around forty to fifty songs and picked the best ones as opposed to just writing fifteen songs and putting those on the record. There's definitely some very poppy ones but we still keep it rock, we've always been a rock band so we keep that same element to our music. It still has the high energy we usually have and whatnot, we got the party songs and the drinking songs, we love to drink it's definitely part of the band.

I imagine that picking which songs make the cut would be the suckiest thing ever.

Totally man, it was tough because I would get out-ruled and be like, I really like this song is there anyway we can put it on but everyone else would not really like it so it wouldn't make it. We do have a couple of b-sides that we might put out.

What was the picking process, how did you choose which of your children were the best?

It's absolutely all us but we like to get other peoples opinions, like our label, it came down to us choosing what we like then showing those to family and friends to see what they like, getting their opinion rather then just ours.

You mentioned that you worked with other song-writers, what made you make the decision to bring them into the fold?

It had always been just us writing our songs and for this record we decided to step out of the box a little so we asked our manager to hook us up with some song-writers and we co-wrote a bunch of songs and we obviously wrote some bad ones but we got some really good ones too so it's hit and miss.

How did you adjust to someone outside of the band coming in and giving them a fair bit of control?

It was tough at first, but when things would really click with another writer it was cool because it would inspire you and pump you up. It's actually pretty fun because we were so used to writing with each other and we've been best friends since grade school so we could be like, no I don't like that, and everything would be cool, but saying that to someone else sometimes people take it the wrong way and we have to be like, it's not that I don't like you, it's a good idea, it's just maybe not for this song. So that's the biggest issue I have is telling other people I don't like something.

Now that you have done things this way, would you do it again?

I don't think it would hurt for us to do it again, I find nothing wrong with it, it's always good to have another person's view of the song you are writing, so yeah I would do it. I wouldn't give a solid answer and say we will do it again but I certainly wouldn't mind.

What about the actual recording process, was that any different this time around?

We worked with a different producer for this record, which was different for us because with our other records we worked with a producer called Mike Green from LA, but this one we branched out and worked with Matt Mahaffey and that was a big step for us because we had always written and worked with Mike but Mahaffey was great, there was nothing too out of the loop and he had really great ideas to do what we were looking for so things flowed really well.

Were there any methods he used or things that he did that were completely foreign to you?

He was good with programming, which we were never really into. We like keeping it organic and not doing things we can't do live, and he understood that but he also added really cool parts that wouldn’t be too dramatic for us but we'd never had them before which is cool. He's a great producer.

Have you had a chance to play any of the new stuff live yet?

Yeah, we played about four songs on Warped tour, it's been good. Kids loved it, I was surprised because we had a bunch of kids singing the words when the record had only just come out a week before so that was great to see.

Does it blow your mind a bit that there are people who are so passionate about what you do that they are that quick onto it?

It blows my mind man, it's an amazing feeling because I know what it's like to be a fan of a band that you love so much, you listen to their songs so much that your never sick of it so I think it's so crazy that kids are like that with us.

Does it change the way you write, the fact that you have this power of influence?

It's always going to change the way you write a song but we stay as humble as we can. When we write a song we think what can we write about that will affect other people not just us.

What are the bands plans for the rest of this year and early next, lots of touring I guess?

Yeah we're going to try to get some overseas stuff going plus we have a new record in the works, we're always writing. Australia as well, it would be our first time going there so we're super pumped.