INTO IT. OVER IT.

THE MOST CREATIVE AND AWESOME MATERIAL comes from when a band that sounds like they shouldn’t fit with a producer, and a producer that doesn’t necessarily sound like they should fit with the band, do something together,” says Evan Weiss. “You’re getting the coolest aspect of the two coming together.”

That dichotomy was the jumping off point for Standards, Weiss’s latest as Into It. Over It. The Chicago-based singer-guitarist usually gravitates to producers whose work he admires, but third time out, he “wanted to go with someone who was not normal for bands that I get compared to,” he explains, referring to groups who, like Into It. Over It., are lumped into the so-called emo revival. “The style of music that I write, earlier on, felt more like wearing my influences on my sleeve. These days I’m more confident in my own sound.”

After writing the record in a Vermont cabin, Weiss found himself in the San Francisco recording studio of John Vanderslice (Mountain Goats, Spoon). Comfort with Vanderslice helped break down barriers in the studio — Weiss says he’s usually “too proud” to ask producers to take the wheel on creative decisions. “I’ve never been with anybody who would snap into action like that,” he says. “That took a big weight off of my brain during the sessions.”

The result is an album that, though sonically about as far from emo as he’s ever been, nevertheless captures Weiss at his most emotionally unguarded. “The whole idea with this record was just to write whatever we felt like,” he says. “That made it fun overall instead of trying to be too smart about what we were doing.”