Adam Granduciel couldn’t stop staring at speakers. Working on the follow-up to 2014’s big breakthrough Lost in the Dream for the last year and a half, the War on Drugs’ perfectionist leader had gotten to the point where he was watching the vibrations to check if the levels were right. “Did I go back and forth thinking that the kick drum’s too loud?” he cheerfully admits. “Maybe. Did I not sleep for a week? Maybe.”

In late April, the Philly band shared its first piece of new music in three years, the 11-minute headphone opus “Thinking of a Place.” The group also revealed a batch of new fall tour dates that will take them across the United States and Europe until Thanksgiving. Details are still scarce pending an official album announcement, but Granduciel confirms the new project will be “gooey, punchy, thick, big-sounding”—”a little different than some of the records we've made in the past, but the same general feeling in the music.” He also promises plenty of vibraphone, Mellotron, and a heavier bass presence, all with more of a live-room feel, and a little bit more Wurlitzer and piano. Expect “Thinking of a Place” to be the the longest track on the record, but Granduciel acknowledges the others are typically all around six minutes or more.

Former War on Drugs member Kurt Vile won’t appear on this one, and Granduciel brushes off the notion of other high-profile guests, despite this being the band’s first release with major label Atlantic. But making most of the record in Los Angeles (and a little in New York), the thought of hiring ace session players like Jim Keltner or Jellyfish’s Roger Manning Jr. did cross Granduciel’s mind. “I kept thinking about an L.A. record and what that means,” he says. “To me, it means the second Warren Zevon record, but it could also mean Tonight’s the Night. Then I threw my hands in the air and just wanted to make a record with my friends, wherever that may be.”

Reached by phone earlier this week, Granduciel was walking around north Brooklyn on a sunny spring day, as birds chirped in the background. In a few hours he planned to head back to south Philadelphia to set up the band’s new warehouse space, for rehearsals and eventually recording. He spoke with Pitchfork about how “Thinking of a Place” was almost even longer, transitioning smoothly to a major label, and the increasing prominence of the real-life war on drugs.

Pitchfork: How did “Thinking of a Place” happen?

I ended up renting a studio in L.A. for about 15 months. Starting in January of 2016, some of the guys in the band were coming out once every five to six weeks for like five days a time. About five months into having the place I’d worked up “Thinking of a Place.”

One day Pro Tools crashed, and the guy I rented from had to replace the whole computer. But it was one of those weeks where—since inspiration can be so fleeting— I was excited because I just felt like something was going on and I wanted to keep working. So I had my one-inch [tape] machine there, which is the machine I used for eight years before, and I came up with “Thinking of a Place” very quickly that afternoon. It started with a drum machine and the synths that start the song. Over the next week or two, it took shape. I did a lot of it on Wurlitzers, and there’s some guitars, and then the band came.