"We were dealing with weather all the time up there. We had all this equipment set up and with the high elevation and the lightning we thought it was going to get fried."
- Carl Broemel
(Spin interview, May 2008)
In an interview with the band (Vanity Fair interview) Jim James said that the album slowly came together over a couple of years. In June 2007 the band spent a month in a rented cabin/studio (Hideaway Studio) in Colorado Springs (Vanity Fair interview and Magnet interview). In a Spin interview the studio and the surroundings are described more in detail, as a rustic ranch which served as a frat-style flophouse, with a barn that doubled as rehearsal space, plus a small studio that made demo recording possible and a basketball course for entertainment. As reported by the same Spin interview the daylong practice sessions were interrupted by electrical storms that rolled in every afternoon at five.The stay at Hideaway Studio also offered some time for the band to further bond together.
"I think it was special because we go on tour together and that's just a constant moving thing, whereas in Colorado we stayed in one place and just marinated in that place, literally. We cooked a lot, we played a lot of basketball ... and we made music together. More importantly, because we were so secluded, I think the isolation forced us to realize why we're still in this band together, why we're on this quest."
- Carl Broemel
(msnbc.com interview, August 2008)
In the Vanity Fair interview James also said that during this visit the band had 22 or 23 songs that they played around and learned.
We really agonized over the sequence and tried to build a cool sequence that took you through a journey. I feel that the themes of the songs and some of the chord structures of certain songs all tie together. I feel that it’s something that hopefully the listener would experience, if they still are interested in listening to whole albums over the course of several listens.
- Jim James
In an interview with Spin magazine Jim James said that the band started out with 22 songs, which they boiled down to 18 and then again boiled down to 14.(Vanity Fair interview, June 2008)
"There were songs that I thought for sure would be the cornerstones of the album - you know like, the fucking opening track - that didn't make it on the record at all."- Jim James
(Spin interview, May 2008)
In an interview with Magnet Magazine James reveals that at one point the band toyed with the idea of making the record into two separate pieces, making one a fucked-up funk record and the other a quiet record.
"The toughest decision for us is whether to make a record that is full of variety. If you look at any of our other records, you’ve got your rockin’ songs, your softer songs, your weird songs, whatever—you’ve got a mix. I like that, but part of me wants to make a really tight, eight-song, fucked-up funk record, and then a really tight, nine-song, quiet record. I’ve always liked records like Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, where you just know you’re getting 40 minutes of peace. Or if you’re ready to go crazy, you put on fuckin’ Paul’s Boutique or something. So that’s the notion we’re toying with."- Jim James
(Magnet Magazine interview, September 2007)
