Therefore I Am Worked Up a Sweat for Latest Album

Recording your debut album is usually a memorable process. For post-hardcore band Therefore I Am, committing 'The Sound of Human Lives' to tape was a true test. "We spent the fall in a closet-sized studio space located in what I refer to as a 'college student landfill' in Allston, Mass., a smaller city about three miles west of downtown Boston," vocalist Alex Correia told Noisecreep.

"This was the most hellish, creative and interesting experience of my life. We worked day jobs to pay rent and spent evenings sweating out songs like the back tank of a Miami strip club toilet. We had no AC, windows or ventilation in our studio, which was the size of a modest walk-in closet. But the worst part?" Correia adds, "The walls were covered in olive/puke/pea soup green carpet padding. It looked like the retro swinger room at your local loony bin."

After sorting demos in said loony bin space, the band moved its gear "and whatever sanity we had left" to an apartment in nearby Providence, R.I. so they could record with Mike Poorman. "The whole experience was like mentally having a child," Correia mused. "I don't mean like a young man going through the questions of becoming a parent. I mean it was like all the pain a mother goes through: stress, fatigue and nerve-shattering pains of labor and birth, all crammed into a 35-day migraine. It was like the worst boot camp scenes of 'Full Metal Jacket' replaying for a month, and Mike Poorman was Sgt. Hartman!"

Despite the hectic and agonizing process, Therefore I Am emerged from darkness to light, with a record they're pretty damn proud of. "We made it out alive and had our baby. We named her, picked out her clothes, took pictures and are now ready to show those pictures to all the other moms and dads in grocery stores and playgrounds around the world," Correia said, extending his metaphor.

The band is spending its summer vacation showing off its 'baby' on the entire run of Warped Tour. "In between getting sunburns, having mud fights and chugging cans of sugary energy drinks, we'll play you some songs, say hello, and show you some pictures of our baby girl," Correia said. 'The Sound of Human Lives' is out now.