How did you guys bring Adam Levine onboard for ‘Stereo Hearts?’
We found him at a driving range and we were like, ‘Dude, what are you doing today? You should be on our album!’ So, we gave him the gig. Nah, we’ve really wanted to work with him for years. I can remember when we went in to cut our first album, we actually brought in the Maroon 5 album ‘Songs About Jane’ as a reference, like, ‘Here’s what we want the drums to sound like.’

We’ve always looked up to Adam and his band. So it’s crazy that we could get to a point in our career where we could collaborate with him. We look at it as a really big opportunity for us.


Is it fair to say that ‘Stereo Hearts’ isn’t representative of the overall sound of the new album?
I guess on a whole that would be correct. Musically, we’ve always been such an ambiguous band. We have many different flavors across the album. ‘Stereo Hearts’ certainly is one of those flavors, but there’s a whole palette of other songs to be enjoyed. That’s the reason that we’ve been leaking bits and pieces of the album, because we wanted people to understand that there are a variety of colors on this album, and ‘Stereo Hearts’ is just one of them. It is the bright pink color.


Do you have any other featured artists on the album?
We have a few, yeah. I think we’re keeping most of them under wraps for now. But we did just drop a new song called ‘Life Goes On,’ and it features Oh Land, who is an amazing artist from Copenhagen, I believe. She is of Danish origin.

We have a couple other features, but it was all stuff that was really done tastefully. We’ve never been in the business of reaching out to other artists based on status or pop appeal or anything like that. When we do a collaboration, it’s because we feel it could be an interesting thing, something that hasn’t been done. Like on the last album, we did a song with Daryl Hall, who was a big inspiration for us. We just try to make sure when we’re doing a collaboration, it’s because that person can really elevate the song.


What sorts of themes does the new record deal with? Does it pick up where the first ‘Papercut Chronicles’ record left off?
We sort of revisit some of the concepts, but it’s almost like an expansion. It’s not just a rehash of what we started with that album. There are a couple points where there’s some throwback to the first album, musically or lyrically, and fans of that first ‘Papercut Chronicles’ album are really gonna get it. Other fans, it might just fly by them. Lyrically, ‘Papercut Chronicles’ was definitely a heavy album, and I think that’s why a lot of kids connected with it — because it wasn’t just an album full of palatable, digestible lyrics. A lot of it was about really heavy, weighted concepts like death and drug addiction. With this album ['The Papercut Chronicles II'], we’re not necessarily drudging those themes up, but in that vein, we’re attacking some more weighted concepts.

There’s a song about religion on the album, which is just crazy. It’s nothing that we’ve ever addressed in our music before, so that’s one good example of how we’re sort of going for a little more serious of a tone with some stuff. The great thing about the way Travis writes lyrics is that it can be serious as hell, but there’s these little quirks of humor scattered throughout the album. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about the way he writes lyrics — it’s always got a tongue-in-cheek approach.


When Travie recorded his solo album, did you guys have any concerns he would decide not to return to the band?
Never. I’ve known Travis and we’ve been working as a band since I was 14. I guess that’s half my life, so I always knew what the plan was. Gym Class Heroes is the priority for us. It’s always homebase. It’s great that we’ve gotten to a point where Gym Class Heroes has allowed us to explore other opportunities as well. I couldn’t be happier for him to focus on his solo album and have success. Having Travis out in the spotlight and having a lot of success at radio only bolsters the Gym Class Heroes brand. I look at it as a mutually beneficial thing.

It’s crazy, the idea that we were going on hiatus or we were taking this break. I guess it was a misconception that people had. For us, we never even felt like we needed to address it, because it was not a concern. I guess the fact that some people may have been confused about our status … We only have ourselves to blame, because we never dispelled anything. But I think it would intentionally throw up flags if we were to be like, ‘We’re not breaking up!’ For someone reason, that totally seems like the type of thing a band would say if they were breaking up, you know?