On their second major-label album, In Defense of the Genre, Max Bemis and his band Say Anything are breaking out the Mellon Collie as well as The Infinite Sadness. The group’s double-disc concept album chronicles the last three years of Bemis’ life, from his surprise diagnosis and struggle with bipolar disorder to falling in and out of love to searching for a happy religious medium. As opposed to the quirkier … Is A Real Boy, Bemis says the new album (out October 23rd) is more of a “classic pop, big rock album.” “Queen, At the Drive-In, … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead influenced the guitar sound on the record,” he notes. A roster of famous friends pitched in, too: My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way, Pete Yorn and members of New Found Glory, Paramore, Taking Back Sunday and many more pop up on songs.
Click here for more from Bemis on the album and an exclusive first listen to “About Falling,” a track that’s nestled in the middle of disc two and is one of the most autobiographical on the two-disc set (more tracks are streaming at the band’s MySpace). “The song is about a place in a person’s life where they accept that they’re alone, coming out of a relationship,” Bemis explains.