Anarbor have been quiet for the past few months, but PropertyOfZack was able to catch up with Slade from the band a week or so ago for a brief update. Slade and I discussed the writing process for the band’s new album, when they would like to record and release their new record, and more. Read up and get updated!

For the record, could you state your name and role in Anarbor?
My name is Slade and I play bass and sing in Anarbor.

So you guys finished a co-headlining tour in August with Valencia. Have you been writing for your new record since then?
We have been. We’re writing as many songs as we can. We’re demoing them and showing them to as many people as we can and are just getting feedback. We’re writing for the most part.

How was that tour? Was it a nice close to the record cycle?
It was perfect. It’s been two years since we put out the last record. So it was nice to finally do a headlining tour to play more songs and stuff. Once we got that out of the way though, we decided it was time to do a new record.

Can you discuss the writing progress for this record compared to The Words You Don’t Swallow?
For the most part, it has just been way more organized. We didn’t necessarily rush the last record, but we didn’t take as much time as we could have. Our music kind of grows with us. It’s a good example of us growing with the songs that we write.
POZ: Is writing just easier now as a cohesive unit two years later?
Slade: All of us write, so it’s always been that tight nit no matter what.

How has the music been developing on this album?
The last album had a whole bunch of different stuff going on with genres and stuff. There were rock songs and slow songs. This record, we decided to make songs that everybody likes. Most of our popular songs are the rock songs. We’re making sure this record is a rock record and we’re really going to push it to our fans.

How many songs does Anarbor have right now?
I’d say over 25 right now.
POZ: Are you looking to finish writing by a certain time?
Slade: Nothing is super set right now. We’re always going to keep writing. There isn’t a finished point for when we’re going to stop writing for this.

When would you like to hit the studio?
That’s still up in the air right now. We’re going to LA on December 1^st to go through our options to see who wants to do the record and stuff.

Has this process taken longer than you wanted it to? Or are you happy with the pace it’s going at?
I would hope it’d go a little bit faster, but we’ve been going through some changes as a band. We’ve had to take a step back and let other people put their hands into it for us. It’s a necessary thing that we waited for a bit. It was all mutual though. We were just waiting for things to happen. The changes have been good.

Would you like to start recording in January or February, or is that too soon?
January, for sure.
POZ: A hopeful release would be by the summer?
Slade: Yeah. That’s all up in the air, but that’s the plan. We’re going to probably take the best 12 or so songs we have and go into the studio with them. We’ll have other people listen to our stuff that we demo out and we’ll see what everybody thinks should be on the record.

Anarbor released a mixtape earlier in the year. Was that a success?
That was actually really cool. We’ve never done something like that, so we thought we’d just try it. It went really well and we gained a lot of fans from just putting that out.
POZ: Have you discussed doing another one?
Slade: It’s been talked about. Our focus is the record right now, but maybe after that’s out.

Will you be doing any shows in the New Year before the record?
There will be shows, but I’m not allowed to talk about it. We’re definitely hitting the road in the beginning of the New Year.