Writing this record was the first time we felt really at home in a long time,

We don't know what we are going to do with this. It's really random with all the ways that we're thinking. Some are very literal and some are very non-literal, but we have no idea where we're going right now.

I sat down with Gerard and we brainstormed, and the children being stolen started coming in as a motif, so we started stealing some of the aesthetics from 'The City of Lost Children' — sort of that surreal atmosphere. The Watchers and the resistance, that was always in my head, but it got more refined. Gerard was helping me get the details down so it would feel right. It came together after that. We just started honing it until it felt like it was all working.

This next song, hopefully, will act as a reminder for you guys,

We've done a couple dates with them in the past, and we've always been big fans. We [wanted] to do something a little different for the show. I was just thinking he'd do some harmonies and stuff, and he was like, 'I've got some stuff I wanna sing.' So he kind of went off and sang some melodies that he had made up, and they were really cool.

It feels like there was a really, in some ways, kind of fashiony, contrived feeling that surrounds that scene. We always kind of were going around saying we're writing the music we wanted to be writing and somehow found ourselves in the middle of that. There were very few bands that were labeled that way that we really respected musically or were good friends with.