The Color Morale have been busy this year with a long Warped Tour trek this summer and now they’re gearing up for a tour in November in support of their brand new album, Desolate Divine. We had the opportunity to chat with frontman Garret Rapp about the writing and recording process of the new album as well as future plans for the band and more. Check out our interview with Garret Rapp of The Color Morale below:

Talk about the title Desolate Divine and what that means to you personally?

The title, it’s kind of a contradiction. Desolate, meaning a state of deserted-ness and Divine, which is usually lovely and I guess it’s about a thesis of where I’m at emotionally when I went into the record. Over the years, I’ve gotten uncomfortably comfortable [laughs] and on this record I wanted to open up and have confrontations and help inspire and motivate people.

How was the overall creative and recording process for you on this new record?

It was great, we had longer than a month to write the record. So Aaron [Saunders] and I were flying back and forth up to New York to write with some friends of ours so we had a lot of time. We took two different trips to L.A. and had a couple weeks to actually write material. To write an entire record in a month is very rushed and very stressful and not very well thought out. We got enough time to do exactly what we wanted to do and we’re extremely happy with the end result, the record came out amazing.

When writing lyrics, do you find yourself consistently coming back to any topics in particular?

Yeah, I think our band has always been about connection and connecting with our fan base. We never write lyrics that are great placeholders or sound good as a one liner in a song, our lyrics are very cohesive and personally tied. This is the first time on a record that I’ve ever sat down at a piano melodically before ever adding lyrical content. It was a huge learning experience creating this record.

What does the rest of 2016 have in store for you and the rest of the band?

We’re going to be on tour officially nonstop. It’s a record cycle so there’s touring. We have things lined up for the rest of the year and hopefully 2017 we’ll be on the road all year. I don’t like being home, I like touring. [Laughs] I like connecting with fans that’s the reason we’re a band.

What is one non-electronic item you must have on tour with you and why?

It’s a notebook for sure – that was my New Year’s resolution to stop jotting notes down in my phone or on my laptop and go back to tangibly writing my lyrics down and it's awesome to give away later. It’s like taking a photograph or a time stamp of a place you were when you wrote down stuff. It’s awesome to have someone look up to you as an artist and you can tear a page out and give it to somebody and that can be an heirloom for them to create something. It’s almost like reconnecting with yourself later I remember where I was when I wrote that” it’s really cool to revisit layers of yourself.

Our thanks to the Color Morale's Garret Rapp for taking the time to speak with us. Pick up the band's new album, 'Desolate Divine,' at iTunes.

Check out The Color Morale's Video for "Walls"

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