left the Matches

Founding bassist Justin San Souci left the Matches in July 2008; he went on to become a concept artist for a video game company. He was replaced by Dylan Rowe, who toured with the band that fall. Creative differences were forming between the band members: A year later, lead guitarist Jon Devoto stated that he had wanted the band’s new music to be “a little more straightforward. A little bit less quirky, indefinable. I want to keep the element of cleverness to a certain point, because that was one of the best points about us, our cleverness and all that. But there was also a point where every song was completely different and I think we lost a lot of opportunities with that.” Harris stated that “There were really conflicting views within the band as to what the direction should be. For me, the direction has always been, ‘Well, I wanna do what is fun when it comes to music and hopefully other people find what I find fun and enjoyable also fun and enjoyable.’ There were definitely heated debates over, first off, how commercial a song should be, and second off, over what makes a song commercial in the first place.” Their recording contract with Epitaph fulfilled, the band wrote and recorded demos for a potential fourth album, but found these differences difficult to overcome. Harris later reflected: