Take This To Your Grave - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

Take This to Your Grave was recorded at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin. This was done with a $40,000 investment from Island Records but was worked by their label Fueled by Ramen. During the making of the album, the band members slept on the floor of a stranger's house for two weeks. The group ran out of money halfway through the process, so they asked the studio who provided them with soda to give them small amounts of food instead. Drummer Andy Hurley compared the making of Take This to Your Grave to "going to war", stating that recording with the rest of the band was similar "being in the trenches together". The group's goal with Grave was to make an album that was as "seamless and good from song to song" as Saves the Day's Through Being Cool. The pre-production phase was completed in a warehouse that the band used for free at night. Here, the group members discussed how they wished the record to sound. Many songs intended for the album did not fit, and the band originally planned to use the leftovers for future albums, but abandoned the songs instead.