The next studio album from Deer Tick is slated for release a bit later this year. As its name suggests Negativity is a bit of a departure from 2011’s Divine Providence. In the following conversation, frontman John McCauley shares his thought on the record, which was produced by his Diamond Rugs bandmate (and longtime Los Lobos member) Steve Berlin. McCauley also looks ahead to this year’s Newport Folk Festival where once again Deer Tick will host a series of official after-parties.

Steve Berlin produced the new Deer Tick album. While he’s worked on many notable projects over the years, he’s also in a band with you, so presumably the nature of the relationship changed a little bit. Did you find that to be awkward at all?

It was totally different working with him as a producer instead of a bandmate. I guess it was kind of hard to give up a lot of the control that I’ve had in the past with Deer Tick. He did a great job and all the ideas that he had that maybe we were a little iffy about at first, turned into things that everybody in the band really dug. I think, at the end of the day, we made the right call working with him. It was a different vibe, taking directions from somebody who, at first, is a bandmate of mine. But you know, it’s all friendly and all good. We never really gave that much control to the producer before. I guess it made more sense to work with somebody who is a talented producer but also a friend of the band’s.

In terms of the songs that you brought in, how would you compare them with the songs that you brought in for your last record?

A lot of the stuff for the last record was kind of dressed up in the studio. There weren’t a lot of songs hanging around or just ready to go. So it was really a handful. This one was, I think it was the longest period of time between a Deer Tick release. We had a lot of time to write and we had close to thirty songs I guess that we all sent in. Instead of trying to record each and every one, Steve just listened to everything and listened for the potential in each demo that we sent him and whittled it down to twelve favorite songs and we just went from there.

You look at the names of the last two albums and they seem to be diametrically opposed. Maybe there’s some irony there but how would you compare the tone of Negativity to Divine Providence?

It’s pretty dark, it’s pretty sleek. It’s a little bit closer to some of the sounds that we had going on in the first couple of records. It was a big, dark cloud hanging over us. I’ve been kind of joking around, saying that it’s War Elephant’s evil twin. But the name of it, even though it’s a pretty dark album, the name is supposed to be kind of tongue-in-cheek. Kind of an over the top statement about the record.

Would you say your last record was a conscious departure from what you’d done earlier? Was it just where your headspaces were at the time or was there something else at work?

It was definitely how we were feeling at the moment. I mean, we wanted to make something different, but how different, we weren’t too sure. It’s just kind of what happened. It’s got that loose kind of vibe to it. It’s kind of a party at moments. That’s definitely how we were operating at the moment. It was fun. That was the first record that we did with the quintet lineup. We kind of had it all figured out but we were still learning as a five-piece. With with this new one, I think we’re a lot more solid as a group. A little bit more comfortable in our own skin.

Deer Tick with Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith at last year’s Newport Folk After-Party

I’m told that Vanessa Carlton appears on the album. How did that come about?

We met through Patrick Hallahan from My Morning Jacket who played drums on her last album. It’s funny how we met. I was out on my porch listening to the radio and having some beers one afternoon and her song “A Thousand Miles” came on the radio. I’d just kind of learned how to use Twitter. And I tweeted at her and said, “Hey, let’s get a beer some time.” And within a day, she gave me a call. We became really good friends really quick. We tried writing some stuff together, which we’re still trying to do. We didn’t really get anything done in time.

I did have this song that I thought would work well as a duet, though_ so we cut it like that. It turned out great. It’s called “In Our Times.” A lot of the record, a lot of the material that I wrote was kind of based on watching my parents struggle with their marriage. My dad’s in jail and whatnot [His father, a longtime Rhode Island State Representative, is serving a 27 month jail term for filing false tax returns]. I kind of wrote this song about the fucked up period of time in a marriage. So it’s not like a happy duet or anything.

The Grupo Fantasma horn section, also is on Negativity. What was the connection there?

Steve produced one of their records. We were talking about putting some horns on a couple of songs. He insisted that we used them. He said that they’re the best horn section he knows of. He loves working with them. Man, he was right. They’re so cool. They got a really classic R&B feel, plus a little bit of mariachi flair. It might sound a little odd combining that with the music that is typical of Deer Tick, but it just gives it this swagger, and just oomph that, it’s just so cool to listen to.

The horn section is on two songs. One of them is a song called, “The Rock.” It’s just kind of a ridiculous song. It’s like Nirvana meets The Misfits meets Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. They’re all over that song in such a good way. Then there are some random, just single horn parts here and there. Really kind of minor touches on a couple others.

Looking ahead you’re hosting the Newport Folk after-parties once again. In terms of the guest musicians, to what extent do you plan those out in advance?

We like to confirm anybody that can definitely do it as soon as possible. And then what always ends up happening is just some random musicians from the festival will show up and they’ll wanna hop on stage for a song or whatever. We have the lineup all figured out this year. We don’t reveal it until a week before, but it’s gonna be a good one. And there’s some great musicians that are not going to do the set but have expressed interest in jumping on stage and doing whatever for five or ten minutes. It’s kind of word of mouth backstage between the artists. And some of them want to be a part of it.

Do you typically rehearse with the guests or is it more on the fly?

It’s totally on the fly. The first year we did it, we went into “La Bamba” and M. Ward just jumped on stage and grabbed the guitar and sang it and played a killer guitar solo. Last year, Jackson Browne had me and Taylor Goldsmith jump up on stage to do a Warren Zevon cover. That was not planned. Anything can happen.