Smug Brothers, hailing from Columbus, OH, are gearing up for the release of their latest album, “In The Book of Bad Ideas,” scheduled to drop on September 8. In a recent interview with Sweet Sweet Music blog, Kyle Melton delves into the journey behind the creation of this album.

How did this record come together?

KM: We started tracking in summer 2021 at my old house, doing a couple of sessions there, then my family moved to a new house in a different part of Columbus in August, and tracking resumed in this new space. For most of our 19 years as Sumg Brothers, we’ve recorded mostly at home, primarily on a trusty Tascam MKIII 4-track machine that’s loaded into the computer and sweetened up with overdubs in the digital realm.

During tracking for this new batch of songs, our old guitarist, Scott Tribble, had to bow out due to limited availability with a new job. He’s on a few songs on ITBOBI, but I’m handling most of the guitar duties on this one. We had a huge batch of about 25 songs we were working on from 2021 into 2022, and some of those ended up on the Emerald Lemonade EP we released in December 2022 on cassette. The rest ended up on ITBOBI with at least three iterations of the running before we landed with what is presented on the album.

What was the moment you knew you were onto something?

KM: I was busy working on overdubs and mixing the album when our bassist, Kyle Sowash, called me up and told me we needed to put this out on vinyl with Columbus indie label Anyway Records. He told me it was too good to let it get lost in the shuffle of a self-released CD or cassette. That’s when I think we all knew this one was going to go a little further.

The meaning of success has changed over the years. What would success look like for the new record?

KM: For us, it’s always a success just getting the album across the finish line of recording and pressing it up in whatever format. If we can get a few more ears to listen, that’s a different kind of success that we would obviously welcome.

How do you decide when a song is finished and ready to be recorded?

KM: I think we defy a lot of norms about recording with how we work since we record at home. The way we work is I demo songs on my phone with just guitar and voice, then I pick the ones I like and show them to our drummer, Don Thrasher, and we set up a session to track together, just guitar and drums with a guide vocal.

Then Sowash adds his bass guitar at his place and sends it back to me. At that point, I’m adding the final vocals and sweetening like percussion, keyboards, and stuff like that. At that point, the song is “finished,” and we put it in the pile to decide what the release is going to be based on how all the songs work together. It’s a bit backward from how a lot of bands tend to work, but this is how we do it.

Suppose you were to introduce your music to new listeners through three songs. Which songs would those be and why?

KM: I think if someone were to listen to “Let Me Know When It’s Yes” off ITBOBI, “Hang Up” off Disco Maroon, and “Meet A Changing World” off Woodpecker Paradise, they would have a pretty good sense of whether they’d want to keep diving into the deep end of our catalog.

The record is done, the music is out. Is the best fun done now, or is it just beginning?

KM: I think we’ve already gone through several layers of fun in recording and getting the album together, getting the vinyl, and getting to listen to it, and now getting into the promo/performance stage. Hopefully, there are a few more layers of fun to be had as we keep going with this new album.

What’s up for the next couple of months?

KM: We’ll be playing a bit more this fall in Columbus, Pittsburgh, and a few other cities nearby where we live. And hopefully, the album continues to attract more new ears. And we’re already busy working on tracks for whatever comes next, so stay tuned…