Coming Home (New Found Glory Album) - Recording

Recording

The three sisters of indie rock band Eisley performed female backing vocals on seven tracks from the album. At the time of recording, Gilbert was then engaged to frontwoman and guitarist Sherri DuPree.

The demos finalised in Malibu caught the attention of Thom Panunzio, who aside from his production work (Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy Osbourne), served as an executive for Geffen Records. The band were flattered by Panunzio's interest, immediately agreeing to the collaboration. The quintet had decided against working with Neal Avron, who had produced the band's three previous albums, as they wanted to try something different. The band's frontman, Jordan Pundik explained that, "We love Neal. Neal's amazing and he's one of our really close friends. But after three records with him, after writing those records and a lot of other bands started to come out and get kind of popular, we kind of wanted to try something different." After hearing a demo of "On My Mind", Panunzio was keen to work on the project. Pundik recalled that, "one of the songs that really got him to say. 'OK, I want to do this' was that song 'On My Mind.' That song really got him. Thom's done everything from like the Go-Go's to Bob Dylan, so he's very well rounded in music."

The band entered Jackson Browne's private recording studio named Groovemasters in January 2006, after Panunzio had suggested it would be a suitable recording location. New Found Glory strove to achieve a "clean kind of classic guitar sound" when recording, using a Vox AC30 amp on almost the entire record. The amp, known for its "jangly" high-end sound, was used with several classic guitars in the studio including a Fender Tele, Les Paul, Gibson 335-S and a Rickenbacker. Gilbert enthused that, "It sounds huge. When you put our old records on and our new record, there's actually less guitars on our new album, but it sounds bigger." Jordan Pundik likewise accounted; "he brought this classic vibe to it, especially with the tones he got. We learned we don't have to double-up 15 Mesa cabinets and make it all distorted to make it sound big." Pundik also spoke of the bands desire to challenge themselves musically; "Usually with every record we think, 'We’ve got to put the fast punk song on it or people won't like it', but this wasn't anything like that." He did admit that around thirty songs were written, including some fast-paced songs, but were excluded as, "(they) didn't really fit." Steve Klein, the bands principal lyricist and rhythm guitarist, also praised Panunzio for helping the band bring new elements to their sound. Describing the sessions as "best recording experience ever", he added, "It's this empty mansion where we were able to set up all our equipment, we just woke up and wrote songs. We were really relaxed and able to set our own pace. Everything about the record is way more classic rock sounding because Thom has done a bunch of classic rock records like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy, and the list goes on and on. He kind of brought this different element to our band. This disc is less guitar driven and more melody driven, more than any other of our records."

One track, the folk-tinged acoustic song "Too Good to Be", was not written until the latter part of recording, only being penned in minutes whilst in the studio. Jordan Pundik joked that, "the funny thing is, that's the song you'd think we wrote sitting on a beach around a fire." While all the songs were primarily written on guitar, Chad Gilbert also tracked melodies on piano, despite his limited ability on the instrument. Gilbert explained that, "When we wrote the songs a couple of songs started out on piano, like the melodies. So in pre-production, I did the piano. But I'm not very good, I can write melodies, but I just use two fingers, my pointer fingers." Panunzio subsequently brought in Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) to play the keyboard, piano and organ parts throughout the album. Paul Buckmaster conducted string sections for "When I Die" and "Boulders", while indie rock band Eisley, comprising three sisters including Gilbert's then-fiancée Sherri DuPree, provided female backing vocals for seven tracks on the album. Once the process of mixing and mastering the record had finalised, the band asked Autumn de Wilde, best known for her portraiture and commercial photography of musicians, to shoot the cover art and liner photography for the album booklet. Chad Gilbert later declared that he was "really proud", citing the music as "the most uplifting" the band had ever written, while Pundik added that Coming Home would be "the one that will stand the test of time."