In part two of our two-part interview, guitarist Christian McAlhaney gives an inside look into the surreal return of Acceptance, what it was like writing the band’s first album back, how Phantoms holds up 10 years later, and why they have no plans of leaving again any time soon.
Acceptance are back and have spent the last year working on a new album. I recently had the chance to talk with lead singer Jason Vena about getting the band back together and what lead to that decision, the differences in the music industry from when the band first broke into the music scene to now, and what the new songs are going to sound like. We also talked about the entire process of recording this album, how the band is taking their time through the process, and why it took ten years for Jason to once again feel like he had something he wanted to say musically. Our full conversation can be found below, only lightly edited, and make sure you pre-order the band’s upcoming album if you haven’t already.
Guitarist Christian McAlhaney compares his experiences in Anberlin and Acceptance, remembers first joining the band and fitting in right away, recalls working on Dark Is the Way and Vital, and clarifies why being a touring musician can be simultaneously joyous and difficult.
Guitarist Christian McAlhaney discusses Anberlin’s latest album Vital, major label troubles, reuniting with producer Aaron Sprinkle, and the past and future of Acceptance.
So Phantoms came out a few months ago.
About five months ago. Well, April 26th.
Ok, yeah, that’s five months. So how has life been since then? How has life changed?
How has it changed? I don’t know necessarily that it’s changed. For us, I think, we’ve all been anticipating finally having a full length record out and having it, since we had the EP out and we toured on it for so long. That was like a collection of songs, I mean, some of those were really, really old songs, even at that time we recorded them. For us, the change is just being able to get out there and play stuff that we feel, that we wrote together as a band. With that record, everybody in the band now was there when we made it. Our other songs before, people came into the band after the fact and stuff. We’re just excited that we get to play something that we created. As far as life, I’m not sure how much life has changed. We’re still living in the RV, living in here and on tour all the time. It’s kind of similar, we just get to play different songs now.
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Is there any significance behind the name Acceptance?
We are suppose to have a better story. But we actually played our first show without a name. And then someone just said acceptance and it stuck. We tried to change it but its hard to get all of us to agree on one thing, so we decided it wasn’t a big deal even though there was a lot of cliché band names coming out.
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