I was thinking about some of the younger bands who claim Smoking Popes as one of their influences and have gone onto become very successful in this generation. I (about ) how their music is different than ours, and what they're doing differently than what we've done. I realized that one of the things I've never done is write from an explicitly teenage point of view--even when I was a teenager. I was always trying to pretend like I was older. I was trying to emulate the kind of perspective and sophistication of the older generation. It occurred to me that it would be funny if now, while I'm in my late 30s, I would actually start writing songs from a teenage perspective. As soon as that thought occurred to me, I got ideas for, like, the first five songs on the record. They just sort of started coming to me. So I went home and started writing and they just came out. That became the beginning of the next record.〔