and to maintain hype for their next album. In November 2001, the band recorded "Campfire Kansas" at Z'Gwonth Studios in Lawrence, Kansas. Following this, the band embarked on a headlining US tour, with support from the Appleseed Cast and Alkaline Trio. The rest of the album was recorded in January and February 2002 at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut with Litt over the course of six weeks. Keyboardist James Dewees stated in an interview with AP Magazine that Litt "knew how to make bands sound good, but he was taking a band that was used to playing four-chord rock songs. We didn't know what we were doing." According to Pope, Litt didn't allow Dewees much control with his instrument: "James would go into something and (Scott Litt) would be like, 'No jazz chords! Don't do that! One hand!'" Litt mixed the recordings while Peter Katis acted as engineer. Ed Rose, who had worked with the band previously, provided additional creative input on "Overdue" while Carl Nappa did digital editing. Katis did additional mixing at The Hit Factory in New York City later in February with assistance from Jamie Duncan. Stephen Marcussen then mastered the recordings at Marcussen Mastering. Composition On a Wire songs were collectively written by the group, unlike their first two albums, which were predominately written by Pryor. Previously, whatever number of songs they had prior to entering the studio would end up being on a record. For On a Wire, they initially wrote double the number of songs that would end up on the album. All of the members would show up to practice sessions with a song, which would be fleshed out by everyone. This was to allow every member to have some input in the songwriting and reduced any resentment in a situation where a single person was writing all the songs. In the past, the group would play songs as a whole band, and sometimes play them on tour, before recording them in the studio at a fast pace. This time, they would take the demo recordings of songs and build upon them. Musically, the album's sound has been classed as alternative country, americana and indie rock, drawing comparisons to the Promise Ring's Wood/Water (2002), Wilco and the Dream Syndicate. It marked a shift away from the group's earlier pop punk/emo sound and replaced it mainly with acoustic guitars, quiet vocals and more prominent