While there's no doubt that his voice is loaded with a healthy amount of excitement in conversation, there's no question that the dominant tone in singer Chris Cresswell's voice is one of relieved satisfaction. It wasn't easy, but everything is finally falling in line for The Flatliners as they gear up to release their fourth album, Dead Language on September 17, 2013 [on Fat Wreck Chords in the U.S. and on New Damage in Canada –ed]. “The last tour we did was really, really awesome,” muses the singer as he catches Ground Control up on all the latest happenings in the band's world. “It was almost overwhelming to see how many people came out for those tours! They were a really great time too – the only unfortunate thing about it is that they were originally supposed to serve as the record release shows [laughing].
“We were originally hoping that the record would be out in June or late May,” continues the singer, “but we ended up spending more time mixing the album than we thought we would, so it's coming out a little later than we expected. That sort of screwed up the plan we had originally, but the upside is that we didn't rush the release just so we'd have it out, and the record sounds exactly how we want it.”
Such news is guaranteed to send ripples of excitement through The Flatliners' fan base, but the amount of time that fans will have to wait to hear new music from the band seems just that much more arduous now that the end is in sight. That's rough but, if fans think the wait is hard, they should try actually being in the band; their waiting game to play this music for fans has even longer. As Cresswell points out, the process of making Dead Language actually began well before fans even realized they should start hoping for a new release. “We finished recording Dead Language in January or February, but the truth is that the songwriting for this album actually overlapped with when we were writing Cavalcade,” says Cresswell as he recounts the timeline that Dead Language really worked on. “We were writing songs for whatever would become the next album while we were working on Cavalcade and it has just been a really busy couple of years which have kept us on the road a lot. When we were finally able to come off the road and get into a studio and get this music down, we discovered it was three years later.
“It's funny because no one ever thought it would take so long to record,” continues the singer, laughing. “The guiding principle for us while we were making this record was just to say 'Fuck it.' We didn't care about anything we'd done before, and that included the process by which we'd made albums before. We kept it simple; we had twenty songs all ready to go, and we recorded them all live, all together and then we chose our favorite ones. That was it – it was that simple. We didn't go through the whole nonsense of 'Well, let's demo the songs and work them up so that we love those songs even though they're just demos, then pick them apart, rewrite them and re-record the all over again – but then think about what kind of audience you want to reach with the record. We started recording the demos thinking we were just beginning the whole dumb process again but, once we finished them and had the chance to listen back to them, we decided that the whole process was needless and stupid because the songs sounded finished and how we wanted them at that point. That was when we decided to not do all the other steps, and so there's really only one version of all the songs on this record – including all the extra songs which we didn't include on the album – and we recorded it all really quickly. I think if you were to add it up, we spent about two and a half weeks in the studio recording Dead Language, but it was really spread out over a lengthy period of time.”
Regardless of the amount of time it took to complete, Dead Language has been done for several months and just awaiting release. That means killing time and playing the waiting game, and The Flatliners have found ways of entertaining themselves in the seven months since the album's completion which don't revolve around the record itself. Since work on Dead Language wrapped, for example, the band has made use of some of the songs which were recorded during the Dead Language sessions but which don't appear on the album and released a split EP with Make Do And Mend through Rise Records on June 18, 2013. The band has also occupied some time by hitting the road both in North America and in Europe, where they've included both of their songs from the split EP as well as a couple of the songs which will appear on Dead Language in their set list in the name of offering a sneak preview. Through it all though, Cresswell is quick to say that he and the rest of the band have all been very careful to keep Dead Language close to the chest and keep it from leaking online before release day. Astoundingly, they've actually managed to pull it off. “I really want to thank all the fans for their patience and their loyalty through all the downtime it has seemed like we've taken here,” gushes Cresswell. “I know they've been hungry for new music from us, and we found that out actually while we were on tour. We've got the two songs from the split in there and two songs on the album, and now I know you can find them on youtube. The reason I know that is because we saw this kid at a show recently who was singing along with one of the unreleased songs. He saw it on youtube and already knew it! It was weird, but it was cool. That's how I know people are interested in what we've got coming, they're looking everywhere for it! That's pretty cool, and I know the record will probably leak at some point but, for now, it's just kind of fun to play hard to get with our fan base. It's coming soon though, and it's going to be awesome when the record is finally out!”
Artist:
www.theflatliners.com/dead-language/
www.myspace.com/theflatlinerstoronto
www.facebook.com/theflatlinerstoronto
www.twitter.com/theflatliners
Tour:
Click here for a list of The Flatliners' upcoming tour dates.
Album:
The Flatliners/Make Do And Mend split EP is out now on Rise Records. Buy it here on Amazon.
Dead Language will be released on September 17, 2013. Pre-order it directly from Fat Wreck Chords in the U.S. here , and from New Damage's Maplemusic store here in Canada.
