Bad Vibrations is the sixth studio album by American rock band A Day to Remember, released on September 2, 2016, by ADTR Records and Epitaph Records. This is the second album since the band's departure from Victory Records, and their first and only album to be featured in partnership with Epitaph. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, making it the band's highest-charting album in the United States. The album was supported by six singles: "Paranoia", "Bad Vibrations", "Bullfight", "Naivety", "We Got This", and "Same About You", and was met with widespread critical acclaim.
Background
In December 2011, it was announced that A Day to Remember had plans of pressing charges against their label, Victory, due to breach of contract. Claiming withheld royalties of over $75,000, the group had reportedly started legal action against Victory on May 31 of that year. Victory has said, on their behalf, that the lawsuit is actually about the band's refusal to fulfill their 5 album contractual commitment to Victory and their new-found desire to move to a major label. While this lawsuit was ongoing, the band self-released Common Courtesy through their own label, ADTR Records in 2013. Following the album's release and tour cycle, the group took a break. Vocalist Jeremy McKinnon explained the band was "doing our own thing, taking it easy and trying to recharge the batteries".
Composition
At the start of 2015, the group rented a cabin at Horsetooth Reservoir, located in Dakota Hogback ridge, west of Fort Collins, Colorado. The cabin was surrounded by woods. According to McKinnon, the group "just wrote together in a room, which was the polar opposite of the last three albums we've made". Typically, McKinnon would have some material saved to show the group, however, this time round he didn't have any. McKinnon went on to describe the album as containing "an element of returning to our roots", in that the album was their first since For Those Who Have Heart (2007) to feature full contributions from all members of the band. For Bad Vibrations, it was the first time since For Those Who Have Heart that the group had written together in a room. While some of the group's previous albums were written while on tour, McKinnon considered it "important to me and the rest of the band to get everybody involved in a room, properly involved and just write a record together".
The group wrote music "casually for fun" without any expectations, according to McKinnon. For the most part, McKinnon would have either a chorus or melody idea that the rest of the group would flesh out into a song. On some occasions, the group would jam and have a finished song in an hour. For their past two albums, What Separates Me from You (2010) and Common Courtesy (2013), the group had trouble naturally writing heavy songs. McKinnon reassured that there was "a lot of heavy songs on there". Cody Quistad of Wage War often accompanied the band for these writing sessions. The group wrote for 30 days, completing at least one song per day. Writing sessions lasted eight-to-ten hours. By the end of this period, the group had around 40 songs in total.
Music and lyrics
McKinnon states that the album's title, Bad Vibrations, is derived from feelings of stress and anxiety. The album's sound has been described as metalcore and pop punk. "Bad Vibrations", written by McKinnon, guitarists Kevin Skaff and Neil Westfall, and Cody Quistad, was the final song written for the album. According to McKinnon, the song is about "being overwhelmingly stressed and what it does to you". The breakdown during the song is heavily inspired by a drum pattern that Mark Castillo of Bury Your Dead would play, according to Shelnutt. One day the group were working on a song but had hit a roadblock with it and were about to call it day. McKinnon heard Skaff playing a random riff. McKinnon then "immediately heard the first half of Paranoia. I immediately showed everybody in the room how to play it". The group composed the breakdown together, finishing "Paranoia" under 30 minutes. McKinnon was writing the lyrics with Skaff and Westfall during the evening, and recorded a demo the following morning. The song's lyrics were inspired by an event McKinnon and his girlfriend experienced during Halloween a few years prior: a kid banged on McKinnon's window at 3am, an experience he called "terrifying".