Dispatches: The Menzingers Studio Update: 2

The Menzingers continue to keep Punknews updated on the recording of their second full length (their first since 2007's A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology). This time singer/guitarist Greg Barnett talks about branching out on the new record, touring with Anti-Flag, and six degrees of separation from Billy Corgan.
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It's over. After an amazing recording experience in Chicago, endless supplies of Busch Lite and PBR, an Anti Flag tour, and an airline experience that left me wishing I just used Mr. Garrison's "it" to travel back to Philadelphia, I'm home. Everyone else stuck around for an extra couple days to finish up mixing while I flew home to start one of my final college semesters. I'm going to try an recap as much as I remember from the last three and a half weeks. Also, I just want to thank everyone who was involved in this record, bought us food/beer, let us crash on their floor, and continues to show support for our silly little band. I can't tell you how much it means to us. Alright so now that I got the sappy shit out of the way here's what we were up to during the last couple weeks…

Joe finished tracking drums fairly quickly and guitars were up next. Matt [Allison] took one look at our said guitars and convinced corporate to spring for a setup (thanks Toby!). From what I heard they were set up by Billy Corgan's studio guitar tech. After channeling the rock from Billy Corgan's studio guitar tech, I assumed the duties to shred and even busted out my first guitar solo. Don't worry its not a "foot on the monitor," "straight outta the gates of hell" kinda solo. She's a modest little ditty that would fit better in purgatory then hell. Fuck, I don't know where I'm going with this… Alright back on track… I finished guitar tracks, Tom then finished guitar tracks, and Eric then finished bass tracks.

After the music was done we left for our short 5 date tour with Anti-Flag, Aiden, and Cancer Bats. The first date was Detroit which we've only played once before on The Red Scare Tour (which on a side note, should have its own dispatch to accurately describe how amazing/awful that experience was). So without the greatest taste of Detroit in our mouths, we left Chicago with Toby and played an awesome show. Everyone on the tour was super nice and we were very grateful to be a part of it. We were on the first leg of the tour which stretched from Detroit to Denver. All the dates were a blast and it was great seeing old friends and making new ones. A-F and crew were super nice to us by letting us borrow some gear for the tour. Also I was fortunate enough to have my bud Dan lend me his amp rig for this tour. You should check out his band, Highlites too. They're awesome.

We left Denver early for the long haul back to Chicago. We stayed at some random motel, in a random town, in a state I cant remember. Just like a Riot Before song… Well I do remember that the dude was a total square working the counter and we had to pull some shit to get all 5 of us in the room that night. I guess I didn't mention this before… Our best friend Garrett came along with us for these dates. He's from Flint. He used to play in The Swellers but now he plays in Shark Week. Garrett's super fun to tour with, can keep up with our drinking abilities, doesn't mind our love for all things Arby's, and has that Midwesterness about him that we all love. Okay back to recording… We got back and kicked right into vocals that lasted the rest of the week. We added some guitar overdubs, gang vocals, and some additional vocal overdubs (thanks Brendan!) and, well fuck, what do you know we have an album!

The record should be mastered in the next few weeks and will be released in mid April.