Anberlin
Indie rockers ascend to major label life

Campus Correspondent Interview By Chad Comello
North Central College

The alt-rock quintet Anberlin has recorded four records in five years—the latest being New Surrender which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Rock Album chart and No. 13 on the Billboard 200. While still remaining a staple of the indie scene, Anberlin has branched out into the wider world, signing with Universal Republic Records and hiring Neal Avron (New Found Glory, Yellowcard, Fall Out Boy) to produce their new album. Stephen Christian, Anberlin’s lead singer and primary songwriter, spoke with Hear/Say while headlining a tour with Scary Kids Scaring, Straylight Run and There for Tomorrow about the switching labels and finding lyrical inspiration for New Surrender.

How has recording an album changed for you since your first album Blueprints for the Black Market was released five years ago?
The most dramatic change was that we changed record labels between our last record and the new one New Surrender. We did our first three records with a guy named Aaron Sprinkle, and the biggest difference was when we recorded Blueprints for the Black Market, Tooth & Nail [their previous label] gave us three and a half weeks to record that record. With Never Take Friendship Personal, we got four weeks; with Cities we got four and a half weeks, and with New Surrender we got three months. Another difference between New Surrender and the first three is that we had a brand new label, a brand new producer with Neal Avron, and we had a new guitarist Chris who actually wrote a good third of the songs [for the new album].

What was it like recording an album with Universal Republic Records rather than Tooth & Nail? Did you have more or less freedom?
With recording Cities, Aaron Sprinkle trusted us a lot. He generally asked us to generate the majority of recording of Cities. He really gave the studio over to us. He would give some input here and there, but Neal Avron – he’s such a professional and such an amazing producer that we wanted to listen to everything he had to say. As far as freedom from the label, we’ve always had absolute 100% freedom to do whatever we wanted. They didn’t come in and look over our shoulders and keep yelling, “Give me that single or else!” It was nothing like that.

You’ve said that Never Take Friendship Personal was lyrically a Man vs. Man album and Cities was Man vs. Self. What is New Surrender?
I’d like to say that with New Surrender we got away from the whole “Man vs. Anything.” I think it was all about everyone else. When I looked back on our older songs, it sounded like I had just bared every last part of my soul and that there was nothing left for me to redo. I had just told everyone my entire life story throughout the last three records, but I had thought that was a little selfish. I saw this whole venting process and I felt bad because so much was all about me. I just wanted to get away from myself, so New Surrender ended up becoming very much about everyone else.

I read that you originally recorded almost 30 songs for this album. How did you go about trimming it down to what it is now?
Once we recorded them all and listened to them back, they almost trimmed themselves down. In the beginning it was almost a natural progression trimming down the first 10 songs. Once it got down to the last five, Neil would have his input as well. There was a song called “Wake Up” that we as Anberlin thought was a great song, as well as another one called “Call to War” that we thought, honestly, could have been the single. It was so close. We wrote it and we were like, “This is it! We wrote the single!” It didn’t even make the top 15.

You seem to always have a good balance of heavier songs and lighter songs. Is this purposeful or does it happen naturally?
It’s natural, because you’re taking five musicians who come from five different walks of life and we come together as a band. I mean, I love the Smiths, Nate loves the Beatles, Deon loves Metallica. So when we write songs they’re not all going to be one style.

How has your work on your blog [modesty.blogspot.com] influenced your songwriting?
Oh, incredibly, man. There is a post written about two years ago called “Dismantle Repair.” The whole post was about failures in my own life and how I wanted [the blog readers] to make sure that they knew I was a weak soul, that I’m not a superhero, just like everyone else in the world. So then a guy wrote on there and said I should write a song about this. And I thought, Wow, you’re right! I should. And that ended up on Cities as a song called “Dismantle. Repair.”

What is your favorite album so far this year?
One of the huge surprises for me was the new Kings of Leon record [Only by the Night]. That came out of nowhere because I’m not a Kings of Leon fan at all. So when it came out, it just hit me. It was so good. His voice started sounding like Springsteen out of nowhere. They’re doing a lot more rock and a lot less country.

What are your plans after your current tour?
After we finish the U.S. tour, we take off for the U.K. – Scotland, Ireland, and England, obviously. After that, we’re coming home to do a couple radio shows. Then we’re off to Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. And then, hopefully, hopefully, we’ll get to do a South American tour through Brazil and Mexico and places like that.