We Are The Champions Of The World 2XLP

Album Details

Formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1999, The Lawrence Arms have remained unchanged since day one. Sure, the band’s brand of anthemic punk has evolved over their nearly two decades together, but at the core of it all, they’re still just three guys who like to play music together. In honor of the band’s 19 years in the game, on March 30, Fat Wreck Chords will release We Are The Champions Of The World, a 29-song best-of album that chronicles the band’s steady evolution over the past two decades.

Culled from the band’s entire discography, which includes their releases on Asian Man Records, Epitaph Records, and FAT, We Are The Champions Of The World serves as both a retrospective and an introduction to the Chicago institution. The tracklist was handpicked by the band—bassist-vocalist Brendan Kelly, guitarist-vocalist Chris McCaughan, and drummer Neil Hennessy—in order to show how these three friends went from making gritty, lo-fi records to becoming some of the sharpest songwriters in all of punk.

Oh,and just so we’re totally clear here, it’s not a greatest hits album.

“I think you have to have hits to make a greatest hits,” says Kelly, “So we approached the song selection in an attempt to be indicative of our evolution, rather than focus on our ‘hits,’ of which, frankly, there are none.” Instead, We Are The Champions Of The World showcases every part of the band’s storied career, from their 1999 debut album A Guided Tour Of Chicago, all the way up to 2014’s Metropole. “In the end, I’m super grateful for the collective experience and history of being in this band with two guys I have known forever and love dearly and are my fam,” says McCaughan. “I guess that’s what this record kind of means and reaffirms for me.”

With liner notes written by both Kelly and McCaughan, the pair reflect on how each song came to be, sharing anecdotes about what inspired them to put pen to paper. But of course, they aren’t trying to tell you what the songs are actually about, because what’s the fun in that? “I don’t think that it’s cool to be prescriptive in song meanings because that leads to the erroneous conclusion that the song has one meaning: the songwriter’s intent,” says Kelly. “In truth, songs have no meaning until a listener connects with it and imbues it with what it means to them. I did offer a few of my interpretations of Chris’s songs, and vice versa, because even though I play and sing on his songs, I didn’t write em, so I’m interpreting them along with any other listener.”