Finger Eleven is not your average band. finger eleven is not your middle fingers corralled together in a triumphant "fuck you!" finger eleven is an instinct that lives in the back of your brain. It's a decision made true to yourself, with a complete disregard of outside influence. It's that one extra finger that you use to point you in the right direction. It's the path of most resistance and that's why it's the perfect name for this band.

When we were making the last album we had all kinds of technical and political garbage hanging around us and even though we got a great album out of it, we still felt like there were many stones left unturned with both Arnold and ourselves. This time around, after having been through almost all the pitfalls a band can go through, with the exception of a dying member (knocking on wood) we had a much clearer idea of what we were about as people, songwriters and musicians. Having that much clarity, or at least thinking we did, made a huge difference.

As we got into the heart of our six-month recording session things got cloudy. It was as though we had been admiring a mural from half an inch away and finally thought "What does this thing look like?" Once we could see the big picture, once we were listening to the songs as "songs" rather than a pile of little parts, we started to get that clarity back. The music started shaping us and our vision and with that a new vision started shaping the songs. Because of that there is way more of our "selves" on the album.

The album artwork was another place where we were able to sit back and look at things - where we've been and where we've ended up. It's a visual chronicle of what was happening to us from the '97 release of Tip to the making of this new one - a complete retelling of how we were dropped by our first label. To how we didn't hesitate to pick ourselves up and go the uphill road on our own legs. To realizing that all of this clawing has brought us back to another puppeteer ­ the great record industry in the sky ­ where we surrender the strings again and jump off the edge to dangle. Only this time we're armed with all the knowledge we've gathered along the way and all of our decisions are and can be made with our eyes open.