Acceptance End Their Decade Of Silence With ‘Colliding By Design’

Interview with Acceptance guitarist Christian McAlhaney | By Tim Anderl

Unless you’re My Bloody Valentine or The Wrens, 12 years is a long stretch between albums. A lot can change in a decade. Following over 10 years of inactivity, Seattle, Washington’s Acceptance – who released their debut studio album and last release, Phantoms, in 2005 – have at long last regrouped, reformed, and have released Colliding By Design via Rise Records on Feb. 24, launching the second chapter of their career.

I remember hearing Acceptance years ago, and what you were doing really resonated with me. Then you were gone. What happened?

I think one could look at the story of Acceptance pre-breakup as a perfect example of what you don’t want to happen as a young band. Our first full-length, Phantoms, leaked nine months before its release date. Against our better judgment, we released a ballad, “Different,” as our first single and made a very expensive yet very forgettable video for it. Our record was recalled due to the Sony rootkit scandal [in which the company deceptively included potentially harmful copy protection programs on millions of CDs], and never properly redistributed.

There were also internal conflicts that just come with being young and in a band with five different personalities. There wasn’t really any sort of fatal blow, it was a death by a thousand cuts if you will. Ultimately, I feel like it was a combination of, what felt like to us, an endless series of unfortunate events and changes in individual life circumstances. One can only spend so much time on the ropes before someone throws in the towel. 

What was the catalyst that brought you back together?

I’d say the biggest catalyst that brought us back together was the continued and what felt like increasing support and interest in the band in the years after we broke up. I had joined Anberlin shortly after the end of Acceptance and started noticing, regardless of where I was in the world, that more and more people wanted to talk to me about Acceptance. This struck me as odd at the time, because Acceptance had a pretty short-lived career, at least on a national level, and was never a “big band” by any stretch of the imagination.

I started relaying a lot of these exchanges back to some of my old bandmates. We would talk reunion shows, but it never grew beyond that. It wasn’t really until the end of Anberlin [around 2014] that an actual reunion opportunity presented itself. Anberlin was nearing the end of our farewell tour when I received, via Anberlin’s manager, an offer for Acceptance to play Skate And Surf Festival [in Asbury Park, New Jersey], the following year. I was about to find myself with a lot of free time on my hands, and Acceptance now had something tangible to discuss. The rest is history.

Aside from age, what else has changed you as a person between Phantoms and this record?

Most people don’t look at it this way, but being in a band is being a business owner, and time has taught me to take more responsibility in all aspects of growing these businesses. I also think that traveling the world changes your worldview, lessening a nationalistic attitude and looking at oneself more as a global citizen.

Was there a major label contract you had to get out of before you could think about doing this again?

Shhh… They might be listening.

When did you begin writing this record, and what was the process of making it like?

We had kind of tested the waters when we wrote “Take You Away” in 2015. It had been a decade since we’d all written together, so we wanted to see what that would even be like. That process went incredibly well, so we began discussing some long-term goals. We had realized that the nostalgia and excitement of an Acceptance reunion would quickly run its course. We were having a blast playing again, so we decided that if we wanted this to go beyond just playing a handful of reunion shows that we would need to release new music. We began taking all the profits from any shows we were playing and putting them towards self-funding our record.

The process itself was a tough one indeed. Proximity and career commitments made it impossible to “go into the studio” in a traditional sense. Acceptance is from Seattle, I live in Florida, and Aaron Sprinkle—our producer—lives in Nashville. There was a lot of time spent on figuring out what exactly we wanted to sound like 10 years after the fact. The ultimate goal was to create something that resonated in people like Phantoms had, a record that still seemed to be moving people to this day. How that translated into music was interpreted by everyone a little differently. There were many trips to Seattle and Nashville, countless emails, more conference calls than I want to think about, and many, many iterations of pretty much every song. 

Ultimately, a year and a half later, I believe it was all for the best. Nothing great comes easy, and this was definitely the most difficult recording process that I had ever been a part of.

What messages were you hoping to communicate or what ideas were you exploring with Colliding By Design?

Reconciliation, redemption, forgiveness, acceptance, wholeness. I think life serves everyone a little bit of heaven and hell. How we navigate these peaks and valleys is what makes us who we are. Everyone in this band has experienced the incredible joys and unimaginable pains of life. I think music and the arts helps communicate the incredibly broad spectrum of human emotion to the beholder and can help one to feel less alone.

What pressures were present during the writing of Phantoms that are no longer there?  What pressures still remain?

This is a great question, because I feel like there is a weird perspective shift that happens sometimes when your passions become your profession. There seems to be a difference between doing something because you want to do it and because you kinda have to do it, if that makes any sense. I’ve had this conversation with many a musician friend that have come to the same conclusions. 

When you are doing something simply for the joy of doing it, there aren’t really any outside influences that may interfere. When you are a young band, your only real thought is to write the best songs you can with the hope that other people will enjoy them as well. You don’t necessarily think about singles, record sales, spins, residuals, syncs, etc.

Phantoms had the pressures of being on a major label, but I think we were too young and inexperienced to really understand the gravity of what that meant. The difference this time around is that this record is totally on our terms. We’ve done everything thus far because we wanted to do it. We spent our own money recording this record, and when that ran out, we decided to crowdfund it to completion. 

There will always be the pressure of trying to write amazing songs. Why do anything if you don’t think it’ll be the best?

Were you blown away when Joe Jonas tweeted about the single?

We we’re super pumped he decided to give us a shoutout. I mean, dude has like eight million Twitter followers, and obviously, great taste in music.

What are your proudest moments on Colliding By Design?

One of the proudest moments for me, personally, besides actually finishing the damn thing, is a song called “73.” I had actually written the initial idea for that song before Acceptance broke up and had been rewriting it for years. We started collectively messing around with that song the first time we all went into a studio in Seattle together. Once we all sorted out what we were playing and Jason [Vena] started singing to it, I knew right away that it was going to be something special. 

Fast forward six months and, for some reason, “73” isn’t even in the running for songs that we’re trying to finish for the record. Garrett [Lunceford] and I had spoken a few times about how strongly we felt about that song, and we decided to try to force the issue a little. I tinkered with the music and structure a bit, Jason and I bounced some different verse melody ideas off each other, Sprinkle did his wizardry, and we ended up with my favorite song on the record.  

Will you be touring in support of the record?

It’s tough, ‘cause we ain’t in our early 20s anymore. We’ll be touring as much as five guys in their mid-30s with families and careers are able to tour. Logistics is the name of the game these days. I think we’ve done a great job navigating home life while trying to be a band. We have a couple shows up the West Coast for our album release, and we’re heading to Australia for the first time [in March] with Taking Back Sunday. We’ll continue to do as much as we can when we can.

Is this the beginning of a newer, longer chapter for the band?

I truly think this is the beginning of a new chapter for the band. I was honestly doubtful that anything like this would ever happen, and I think we’re all a bit surprised at what this has turned into.

What has Rise done to help the band make this rebirth a reality?

Rise has been amazing so far, and we really couldn’t be doing this without them. I could see how a band in our particular situation might give pause to a lot of labels, but Rise has believed in us and supported every idea that we’ve brought their way. I truly hope we can make them proud.

 What are you hoping people will walk away with upon listening to Colliding By Design?

I think there is a depth to this record that also existed on Phantoms as well. I think it takes a couple listens to fully grasp what we tried to accomplish with this record. They are “pop” songs, in a sense, but we definitely pushed ourselves to be intentional about every track on every song. I hope that comes across—and that people walk away with “That Joe Jonas sure knows what he’s talking about.”

Purchase Colliding By Design here: Physical | iTunes