Brian Mansfield

Special for USA TODAY

%27Make It Rough%27 appears on 311%27s new album %27Stereolithic%27

%27Stereolithic%2C%27 the group%27s 11th studio album%2C will come out March 11 %28Get it%3F 311 on 3/11%3F%29

The album%27s release will coincide with a 311 Day concert in New Orleans

People across much of the USA stuck in the throes of yet another cold wave might have a hard time hearing 311's Make It Rough.

The first verse of the song, premiering at USA TODAY, includes the lyric, "Breathe in and out patiently/Wait for spring's returning."

"That verse is about learning patience and seeing your life in long arcs rather than immediate gratification," says Nick Hexum, vocalist and guitarist for the group, which found massive popularity starting in the '90s with genre-blending rock hits like Down and All Mixed Up.

The song, which appears on 311's forthcoming album Stereolithic, began its life as a beat. "It was just an instrumental and I wanted to make it tough, so I called it Make It Rough," Hexum says. "Then I realized there was a backstory I could build around, in the way people tend to create drama for no reason and make their lives harder than they need to be. So there's underlying message of going with the flow."

Make It Rough picks up the tempo from most of the band's reggae-suffused songs. "Maybe Don't Tread on Me (from the 2005 album of the same name) is in the same neighborhood," Hexum says, "but, generally, we've done more dreamy reggae, but this is a reggae rocker."

Hexum says Make It Rough is on the more melodic end of the spectrum for Stereolithic's 15 songs. "There are more hard, dissonant, uptempo rockers that make the majority of the album," he says, "and I'd say three left turns that are new styles we haven't touched before. The few people who have heard the album so far are, like, 'You're getting into some new territory there.' To me, that's a nice blend of an album — to have the core songs that are going to ignite our fan base, to have some more melodic songs like Make It Rough and then also some totally experimental things like nothing we've ever done before."

Stereolithic, out March 11, marks the return of producer Scotch Ralston, who last produced 1999's Soundsystem, to the 311 team.

"He has worked on so many of our albums," Hexum says. "He was involved at some level on the first five, and he produced Transistor, which has turned out to be our longest-living fan favorite.

"A couple years ago, we asked him to come back and start doing our live sound again. He's such a powder keg of energy and enthusiasm for our new music. He was going through the hard drives in our studio and finding all these orphan demos, dusting them off and championing them."

Some of those unfinished songs go back as far as 10 years, to the writing sessions for Don't Tread on Me. One, Ebb and Flow, had a different life with an unofficial version.

"That was once a demo called Go that somehow leaked out to our fans," Hexum says. "It was just an instrumental, and one of our fans took it upon himself to write vocals for it, then sent it around to other 311 fans." While Ebb and Flow is a completely different song, Hexum says, "that was kind of cool to have a fan finish one of our songs."

Some other tracks, like The Call and album closer Tranquility, have been around for a few years, "but we kept the bar pretty high," Hexum says. "We wanted to make sure all the songs were great. Considering how high our standards have become these days, to have 15 songs is an accomplishment I feel pretty happy with."

Hexum says the band is particularly excited to be releasing Stereolithic on March 11 (3/11), which will coincide with its biennial 311 Day concert. This year, the concert will return to New Orleans, the city that hosted the first 311 Day in 2000. "That has been always a dream of ours" to have the convergence of a 311 Day and a record release. "We had to cram a little bit to get everything done, but to get 15 songs done in the three or so months that we were tracking and to meet all the deadlines to get it out on 311 day, it's just an excitement overload."