Named the most anticipated album of the year by Alternative Press magazine, Jack's Mannequin's new album drops September 9, tentatively.

"I'm going to say that loosely, but it looks like September 9. In my crazy head, I continue to work on music, and I call the label and I'm like, ‘I'm sorry, I don't think I'm finished,' but we're very close," lead singer and band leader Andrew McMahon said.

McMahon said the title, The Glass Passenger, stems from a lyric that did not make it onto the album. "The things that I encountered in the past few years that sort of inspired the writing of this record, I think, if nothing else, I found that life is anything but all the things I was so confident about it being. I think Glass Passenger is really just a reference that things are fragile and that maybe we aren't in so much control after all," McMahon said.

The day McMahon finished recording Everything in Transit, his first album with Jack's Mannequin, he was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia. He received a stem cell transplant from his sister in August 2005 and is now cancer free. Perhaps because of this, his outlook on life was different when he sat down to work on The Glass Passenger as compared to the writing process with Everything in Transit.

"I think its purposes were similar [to Everything in Transit] in the sense that I was using a record to sort of help me get through, work out some things that were in my head, but with Everything in Transit, it was much more of a stream of consciousness. Whereas, this record, because I think a lot of what I ended up writing about, things that I ended up needing to sort through, were things that happened in the past, and sort of at a time when I wasn't really well enough to write, the digging process actually became really hard. I would get writer's block, because I would think of all of these things that I felt like I had to write about, but there were all these subjects that I was trying to avoid in some ways, so it was harder," McMahon said.

In the end, though, writing became almost therapeutic. "It actually helped me work some stuff out; it just took me a while to find out, you need to look backwards, you need to sort this shit out, if you have any hope of moving forward at all. The record was sort of helpful at connecting the past and present," McMahon said.

The Glass Passenger is somewhat of a concept album, he continued, but not in the same way Everything in Transit was. "I think a lot of these songs just relate to the idea of surviving it, along with just trying to climb the hill and just get out from underneath something," McMahon said. "All the songs directly relate to this idea of a sort of tangible, overwhelming sense of pressure and this lack of confidence, while just clawing at the fucking wall, trying to get up over it. And, if anything, I think that is the theme that directly relates to this album."

As of right now, "Swim" is looking like it is going to be the first single, and Jack's Mannequin will be touring in support of the album through the next year.

Reel Big Fish

After conflicts with their former label, Jive, ska legends Reel Big Fish decided to release their latest album, Monkeys for Nothing and the Chimps for Free on their own last summer.

"We don't need a label," lead singer Aaron Barrett said with a smile. "We basically fund the music ourselves; we work with a company called Rock Ridge Music and they distribute the albums worldwide for us. We don't have a record deal, but we didn't want to start a label because there's no point... We've got a good thing going right now. We're an indie band in the real sense of the term. Totally unsigned, technically."

The band has been together since 1996; over the years, they have gone through many different lineups and albums together. They have built a dedicated fan base and a following in the United States and abroad. "There's two ways to look at it," drummer Ryland Steen said. "There are some people who would sit and complain they do the same tour every year, but another way to look at it is, we're still doing the same tour. It means that we have an amazing audience, with great loyalty. They don't just come to hear one song. Reel Big Fish has built their reputation over the past 12 years of having an action-packed live show. I think that's one reason why the fans still come."

This crazy, action-packed show is a part of Reel Big Fish that they are both known for and that they have down to a science. "The crazy kind of kicks in when you get onstage," Steen said. "I don't get a microphone because they're afraid I might get a little too crazy, but especially Aaron and Scott, because they've been doing it so long. There's just this chemistry there that you just can't duplicate."

This past year, they also replaced bassist Matt Wong with Derek Gibb, a former member of The Forces of Evil. "Matt liked playing the music and everything," Barnett said. "But it was never his dream to be in a touring band. It's just not what he wanted to do...He stuck with it for 16 years, he didn't just want to up and quit, because he believed in what he was doing. He just didn't like to be on the road. He just decided to do something else."

Check out Reel Big Fish on the rest of Warped Tour.