It was the week before Warped Tour and Man Overboard are rehearsing their live set, which now includes material from their upcoming fourth full-length album, Heavy Love. But where this would usually be the band’s first time playing these songs live together, it’s not the case this time around. This time around, they recorded with the Descendents’ Bill Stevenson (who’s also produced albums for NOFX, Propaghandi and Rise Against, just to name a few) and laid out the album as if they were playing live.

As a result, the band considers this collection of songs their best performance yet, which may also have to do with the personal highs and lows some band members experienced between records. While taking a break from practicing, guitarists Justin Collier and Wayne Wildrick talked with Myspace about the new record, working with Bill and why they’re putting out an album while on Warped Tour. 

Are you excited to premiere your new material at Warped Tour? 

Wayne Wildrick: Yeah, it really couldn’t work any better. Warped Tour is the best opportunity for bands in our world to promote a record. When we found out we were going on it this year and had already planned to record an album we wanted it to come out on the tour.

This album is a result of personal trauma. Can you talk to me about that? 

Justin Collier: Any record that we’ve made besides this record has pretty much been written on tour, then we come off tour and immediately start demoing and get in the studio, so the music is pretty much a reflection of all that. This time around we had this big break—the longest we’ve had in the last five years. Some band members had deaths in the family and others got married, so there were some pretty polar emotions going on. We put out an acoustic EP in the early fall. To be honest, I think that EP was the biggest reflection of what was going on at the time because it was so close to everything. It was almost a closure since it was the first time we were in the studio making music since our last record. Going into this record, we had to figure out how to transition back into being a rock band and looking forward and trying to decide where to take the music. But at the same time, how do we still do justice to the emotions we were feeling? A lot of those topics are still touched upon but you’ve gotta start moving forward and keep experiencing life, so there’s a lot of that on the record, too. The album has a good balance between retrospection and forward thinking.

Did these feelings make the writing/recording process more difficult?

JC: Actually, this was the easiest recording process we’ve ever had. Bill [Stevenson] has been doing this forever and has obviously played in bands for a long time, so he lets the band do their thing and doesn’t get in their way. He keeps everything moving and is great at managing the whole production. It’s one thing to be a good sound engineer or producer, but to do both and keep things moving at a comfortable pace is a whole other skill set to have. Bill has it all. I think the hardest part was being away from each other. It’s just like any other relationship, when you’re away for awhile it might be a little weird at first when you get back—that’s just the way it is. When you’re in a band and on tour 10 months out of the year then take four, five, six months off you’ve gotta catch up with each other. You can’t roll in and expect to be on the same page, and I think that’s where a lot of bands start to fall apart. You just think that nobody’s going to change and that’s not true—that’s not how life works.

What would you say are the biggest differences between Heavy Love and its predecessors?

JC: I really think the groove and performance is the strongest. I think it had a lot to do with Bill having us play the songs so much beforehand. Usually we’ll have an idea, we’ll build it and record it and listen back on it, but he wanted to hear everything. He wanted us to be able to play the songs without laying everything down and listening back. When you listen to these songs, there’s so much more of a huge feel to it. But you still hear a lot of things you heard on the other albums—it’s not like we did a complete 180—it’s a culmination of the last two records. It’s got a new flavor and we tried some new things out but it’s a pretty straightforward rock record; it’s very guitar driven. There’s a lot of space on it. I also feel, especially vocal-wise, that it was Nick and Zac’s best performances. Lyrically it’s some of their best work as well.

What are you most proud of with this album? 

JC: Getting to work with Bill is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to our band. We were all huge Descendents fans and we grew up on the albums he recorded—some of our friendships were started over them. I think that in itself is the biggest accomplishment. All we ever wanted was respect from people we respected. We never thought the band would go this far, and to be able to work with someone like Bill is still so surreal because there’s really nobody on earth that we’d rather make a record with than him.

Man Overboard's Heavy Love is out June 30 via Rise Records.