With Relapse to Recovery, the guys of These Green Eyes created an unintentional concept album based around a personal tragedy. Through self-searching lyrics and huge choruses, TGE navigate their feelings regarding the suicide of a close friend. Read on for our convo with lead singer Colin Cunningham, who told us all about the history of the album, getting named to Alternative Press 100 Bands You Need To Know list, and what he's most looking forward to at Bamboozle and on this year's Warped Tour.

Your friend's suicide inspired parts of Relapse to Recovery. Has making music helped you to grieve?
Yeah, it definitely does. If you've ever had somebody die, like a friend or a family member like somebody gets sick and they die, you can come to terms with that. But when somebody takes their own life, it?s a lot harder to sit down and make sense of it. The writing of this record definitely helped us settle down and express some of the conflicting thoughts that [we were] feeling. I remember the night that he died. We got a phone call from somebody, and it was like, "Look you need to come by the house. They need all the help they can get." So we all went by the house that night and there were maybe about 100 kids who had heard about it and would stop by for about five minutes. We were all standing in the kitchen, and everybody's got their head down, and every time I met someone's eyes, it was a question and also an accusation. It was like, "Oh man, what didn't I do?" and "Oh man, what did you do?" I could see it in everyone's faces, like the whole range of emotions -- negative emotions of anger, a little bit of hate, like "How could you do this?" The song "Sucker Punch" on our record is definitely like a theme from that room. It was so hard to talk about then, and it's so hard to talk about now. So writing the record and recording it was very therapeutic. It doesn't ever get easier to talk about, but it's never something that I don't want to talk about, because if it's going to make a difference for somebody else then that's more important.

So in a way, the album's kind of like a concept album?
Yes, it was an unplanned concept album. The record, from start to finish, is definitely a story. We wanted to try and tell some of the story from his perspective, to tell maybe what he was thinking and think it through and think about what he might have been thinking. As the record progresses, each song has a different viewpoint, and it all ties together with the very last song [with] a bunch of people in a room basically saying, "Remember when things were better?" While the record does deal with some negative emotions, there is a very, very strong vein of hope that goes through the entire thing.

How do you guys differentiate yourselves from other bands in the scene?
The message in our music, especially on the new record, is a little different than what some of the other bands out there are doing these days. I mean, pretty much anybody that's ever been in a band has written a love song or just written off the top of their head -- that didn't really mean that much. Every note on our record is like a confession in a way and it has a message, and I really feel like one of the things that sets us apart from any other band is that you can put our new CD in and from start to finish, if you have problems, if you suffer from depression, if you're thinking about suicide -- I really feel like there's something in each one of our songs that can help someone make a positive choice, instead of a negative choice, so I feel like the message is definitely there too.

Congrats on being named one of Alternative Press' 100 Bands You Need To Know. How does it feel to be on that list?
That was awesome. That was unexpected. AP, I'll be honest, isn't really a magazine that I read very much. When I was a kid, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone, you know? [But] it's an honor. That's kind of the flagship magazine of this generation of bands, so to be included in there with some bands that I would love to play with, first of all, on that list of 100 bands, some of those bands we've played with -- it was fun to see the next class come up, the class of '09. It's an honor to be in there.

What other bands do you think people should be on the lookout for?
There's a band in New York called Looking Glass Wars. They're sort of a groovy indie rock group, but they throw some heavier stuff in there too. They do pretty much whatever they feel like. They're very prolific. I've been a big fan of theirs for a while. You should be on the lookout for us because we're cool. Nah, I'm just kidding. There's a band in Connecticut called The Lows -- it's for fans of like Circa Survive-y indie rock stuff, but they've all been in hardcore bands for years so they definitely have an edge to it that some of those other bands don't have. And they're recording a new CD that I'm really excited to hear.

You're playing Warped Tour and Bamboozle this year. What are you most excited for?
The opportunity to meet new people. This is a chance for us to show people who we are and what we're about, and it gives us a chance to make a lot of new friends, especially with people in the crowd. I think we're playing the first date of Bamboozle, and it?s a really solid line-up. There are a lot of really good bands playing, like Fall Out Boy is headlining at the end of the night. It?s a great opportunity for us, and I'm really excited because we'll be able to kind of say that we played a show with No Doubt. No Doubt was the first concert I ever went to back in 1995/1996.

We hear you used to BMX. Why'd you stop?
I traded my bike when I was 17. I think I traded it for a free summer of landscaping at my grandmother's house. The guy who was doing her lawn had a son who wanted a bike, so I said "Look, I'll give you my bike if you do her lawn for free." He was like, "Oh that?s cool." I had just gotten a car and was like, "Oh, I can always get a new bike," and then I had knee problems for a few years. I didn't always wear the right shoes when I would go running or stuff like that and I used to be, not an idiot, but on top of all the biking I did, I did a lot of climbing and jumping off of things I shouldn't have been jumping off of. and over the years it did damage to my knees. So I haven't been on a bike in a little while to do any sort of trick riding or anything. It's more for casual, point A to point B type stuff. I miss it -- I definitely miss it.