Bad Vibrations

At the start of 2015, the group rented a cabin at Horsetooth Reservoir, located in Dakota Hogback ridge, west of Fort Collins, Colorado. The cabin was surrounded by woods. According to McKinnon, the group "just wrote together in a room, which was the polar opposite of the last three albums we've made". Typically, McKinnon would have some material saved to show the group, however, this time round he didn't have any. McKinnon went on to describe the album as containing "an element of returning to our roots", in that the album was their first since For Those Who Have Heart (2007) to feature full contributions from all members of the band. For Bad Vibrations, it was the first time since For Those Who Have Heart that the group had written together in a room. While some of the group's previous albums were written while on tour, McKinnon considered it "important to me and the rest of the band to get everybody involved in a room, properly involved and just write a record together". The group wrote music "casually for fun" without any expectations, according to McKinnon. For the most part, McKinnon would have either a chorus or melody idea that the rest of the group would flesh out into a song. On some occasions, the group would jam and have a finished song in an hour. For their past two albums, What Separates Me from You (2010) and Common Courtesy (2013), the group had trouble naturally writing heavy songs. McKinnon reassured that there was "a lot of heavy songs on there". Cody Quistad of Wage War often accompanied the band for these writing sessions. The group wrote for 30 days, completing at least one song per day. Writing sessions lasted eight-to-ten hours. By the end of this period, the group had around 40 songs in total.