“Sometimes you just need to tell everyone to f*ck off!” Inside Story Of The Year’s new album A.R.S.O.N.

As Story Of The Year return with A.R.S.O.N. (they’re “still breaking new ground with the energy of a band that is just getting started” according to Kerrang!’s 4/5 review), vocalist Dan Marsala walks us through the band’s killer seventh album, song by song…

“When Ryan [Phillips, guitar] showed us a demo of that massive riff at the beginning of this one, we knew that it needed a crazy vocal to match. We were all in the studio throwing ideas around with our producer Colin Brittain and co-producer Dan Book, and the word 'gasoline' kept popping up. It was immediately obvious that this song needed to just be a heavy ripper about saying, ‘Fuck everything, burn it all down.’ Life is so crazy nowadays with so much negativity and constant bullshit being thrown in our faces, sometimes you just need to tell everyone to fuck off! It’s definitely one of the heaviest songs on the record and I love that it’s super-intense, but still melodic and catchy at the same time. It’s a fun one!”

“This was one of the first songs we wrote for the record and the first thing that got us excited about how the new stuff was sounding. It shows off everything that Story Of The Year does best: big riffs, big chorus, heavy, catchy, rock’n’roll. Vocally, it went through a couple of transformations before we got it right. We originally had completely different melodies and lyrics for the verse and chorus, and it was pretty good, but it just wasn’t blowing us away. We decided to start from scratch and once again, it all started when somebody said the word disconnected. We immediately knew the direction the song needed to go. It ended up being a cool metaphorical song about feeling alone and longing to have a real connection with someone or something. Everyone feels that every once in a while.”

“This song started as a rough idea that Colin had already started writing with a songwriter named James Fauntleroy. He showed us a demo of it and we all fell in love. It had a very different vibe than the rest of the ideas we were working on, but we knew we could put the SOTY spin on it and turn it into something special. I love how the lyrics are super-dark and almost negative in the verses, but then when the chorus hits, it feels completely uplifting and glorious. It takes you on a wild ride and I love how it makes me feel.”

“This was another one that went through quite a transformation. It originally had a different chorus and I was singing the verses in a more screamy, hardcore vibe. We were all a little unsure about it, until the idea to have Jacoby Shaddix do guest vocals came up. We happened to be in the studio the same week that Papa Roach was there finishing up some ideas as well. We’ve all been friends for a long time so we just threw it out there and Jacoby was nice enough to say yes! He has such a cool voice that was perfect for the verse ideas. Once he recorded his parts, the song felt complete.”

“I think this is my favourite song on the record. Definitely in the top three. I love that it has a more upbeat, pop-punk vibe to it, but it’s still heavy and intense. The lyrics are super-special to me. It’s about having an amazing job, but you have to leave your family at home for months at a time to do it. Most of us in the band have kids and wives and it’s such a crazy thing to go through every time we walk out the door to go on tour. We are so lucky to be able to do what we do, but there is a lot of sacrifice involved as well. I think we captured that feeling pretty well with this one and I fucking love it!”

“This one has a dark, sludgy feeling to that opening riff and as soon as Ryan showed us the demo, we knew what the vibe should be. The title Into The Dark came up immediately as we were talking about what to write it about. I think the chorus progression was Colin’s idea – he wanted it to have a bit of an uplifting chorus compared to that dark verse. Lyrically, it’s about letting go and giving in to the darkness. Not being afraid to embrace your fears and vices. Just a fun, reckless song about going into the dark.”

“This was the first song that we wrote with Dan Book. I remember saying that we’ve never written a song with that ‘upbeat Jimmy Eat World vibe’, so we started this one with a tempo and a drum beat. The rest of it all kind of fell into place as we worked on it. It’s basically just a love song that leans into the ups and downs of any relationship. It’s so much fun to collaborate on music with new people and see where the different influences take us. This one is a perfect example of that.”

“We completely rewrote this one towards the end of the recording process. Once we are almost done writing a record, we kinda look back and see what’s missing. We felt like we needed an upbeat, Page Avenue-feeling song on the record, so Ryan reworked one of the songs that we had been messing with a few months before. I wanted the lyrics to be about how we all need someone to pick us up every once in a while. Although, we don’t want to be the burden or the dead weight in that situation. ‘I need to hear you now,’ pretty much sums it all up.”

“This song could be taken in a few different ways. It has an obvious relationship sentiment to it, but there’s also a bunch of references to addiction and being scared to hurt yourself. I have some very specific ideas of what it means to me, but I love that it can be open to interpretation to everyone. It definitely makes me feel things in a different way than any other song on the record.”

“Colin started playing the acoustic guitar one day and we all sat around singing along. A couple hours later, this song was pretty much finished. The final version is basically just the demo that we recorded as we were writing the song. We touched up a couple things later, but it’s a very spontaneous and organic song. I love the Better Than High line so much. Colin sang it in passing at some point and it brought the whole song together.”

“This was the last song that we wrote for the record. It all started with the title. Just reading those words makes you feel something. We knew there was something special there before we even wrote the music. We brought in fellow songwriter Elijah Noll to help us make this one as special as possible. It’s an emotional song about love, loss and the pain of moving on.

“Fun fact: the screaming part in the bridge, ‘I can’t go back, I don’t know what to do…’ was all recorded in one take the very first time I ever tried it. We went back and did a double, but the first take is the one on the record. Once we finished this one we knew we had everything we needed – album number seven was complete!”

A.R.S.O.N. is out now via SharpTone

Read this next:

• The rise of ADTR, as told through their most important gigs
• The Used: “We’ve been an emo band for 23 years. We never stopped, we never broke up, we never went anywhere!”
• The 11 most underrated pop-punk bangers of the ’00s