For this album, the T’s had the luxury of recording in a proper studio (North Hollywood’s Hard Drive) with a producer, Ariel Rechtshaid (The Hippos, We Are Scientists). This was quite a departure from the “hectic and random process” Higgenson remembers as the recording of the debut T’s effort, Stop, in a friend’s basement. “We love that record but we had no idea what we were doing,” he confesses. “It was awesome just being in a real studio with a real producer this time. The whole process was incredible.”
The expanded sonic possibilities didn’t change the band’s crunchy coating/creamy center approach to pop-rock, however. Nor did a big studio dampen the emotional urgency of their songs.
Thematically, Needed deals with breakups (“Anything,” “Take Me Away”), longing (“Last Call,” “Hey There Delilah”) and the loneliness of life on the road (“Sing My Best”). But for Higgenson, what underlies the entire disc is a sense of freedom born of unity.
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