Against Me! [ tickets ] bassist/vocalist Andrew Seward has a practical approach to accolades, like the one his band received for "Best Punk Band" from a major magazine.

"It's like the good and the bad, you have to take them together," said Seward, calling from "Hotlanta," GA, as he called it. "You can't give too much merit to any of them. Of course, the compliments are much better than the hate. But, you know, they kind of have to balance themselves out. You just have to have fun with what you're doing and just keep doing it. Damn the naysayers and love the compliments."

Fans can judge Against Me! for themselves as the band--which also includes guitarist/vocalist Tom Gabel, guitarist/vocalist James Bowman and drummer Warren Oakes--is touring through the month of October in support of its latest album, the 2007 Butch Vig-produced "New Wave."

"He's pretty much the nicest and easiest person you could ever hope to work with," Seward said about Vig. "No ego comes attached with that man. He's just a really good person."

Early on in his band's fall tour, Seward spoke to LiveDaily about working with Vig, as well as with Tegan and Sara's Tegan Quin, writing new material and his band's politics.

How was the Austin City Limits Festival?

It was great. Who did I get to see? ... I got to see the Foo Fighters. I also got to see the Foo Fighters for, like, three months when we toured with them. It was good but it wasn't anything new. I got to see Tegan and Sara, who were awesome. I got to see Band of Horses for a little while. Pretty good. It's very eclectic. It's very good and well organized and a s--- ton of people too. It's kind of crazy.

Tegan appears on your CD, "New Wave," correct? On the song "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart"?

Yeah. She actually played that song live with us for the first time ever at the Austin show.

How did that collaboration come about?

[At the] '06 Warped Tour in Vancouver, she was the interviewer for MuchMusic, which is the Canadian MTV equivalent. She was interviewing Warren and Tom and she jokingly said, "If you guys need someone to do back-up vocals on your next record, let me know." Tom got her phone number and e-mail and pretty much wrote that song with her in mind. So he just called her up, she agreed to it and she came on down.

What was it like to work with her?

It was great. It was only, like, a day. But she came in and just busted it out. She was good to go. She's awesome. She's really nice. They're intense, though. They're hard to keep up with--in a good way.

Why did you decide to name the album "New Wave"?

I don't know. Well, I mean, Tom thought of the name. It is a name of a song. It's open to interpretation, if you will. We all acknowledge New Wave music and New Wave music is good. But [the title isn't about] the style of music.

You worked with Butch Vig (Garbage). What's the most important thing you think you learned from him?

Patience. Don't just settle for "That's good enough." You have the time, just try your hardest and make sure you get it right. He wasn't in a rush at all. We were more in a rush than he was, just because we weren't used to anything else.

Did you spend more time on this album than records past?

We took a s----load of more time. The first full-length was recorded in a day. The next one was recorded in a week. The next one was recorded in a month, and "New Wave" probably took, with pre-production, mixing and actual tracking, four months.

So with each album, you're taking a bit more time?

Yeah, hopefully this next album won't take, like, a year. That's a bit too long.

Have you started writing new material?

Well, Tom has some solo stuff that's actually coming out on Reprise in the form of an EP ("Heart Burns") on Oct. 28. We've got this tour for another month and then he's doing a solo tour for about two weeks, then we're going to Europe for about two weeks in December. And then we're going to just break for awhile. That'll have been a year and a half of completely straight touring off this record, Actually, no. It'll be two years of almost straight touring. We toured with "New Wave" before it even came out. Us taking time off usually means, like, a week. We'll get back together and start seeing what happens.

I thought you were going to say months.

I think we'd go crazy. We wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to do.

What was the songwriting process like for "New Wave"?

For "New Wave," it was all written on tour and flushed out on soundcheck. Tom would come with a riff. He'd sometimes bring a complete song to soundcheck. We'd have 15-20 minutes for soundcheck. Sometimes, we would start to practice during soundcheck. Some of those songs were played live on tour as they were being written--just to try them out. It was definitely written on the road. Tom was writing in the back of the van, in the back of a bus, hotel rooms, pretty much wherever, on an acoustic guitar. Then it would be fleshed out by the band at soundcheck.

You said you played some of the new songs live. Did any of the songs drastically change from the time you wrote them to the time you recorded them?

I'm trying to think ... Tempo-wise, definitely. I'm sure when we played them live for the first time they were fast as s---. We got in the studio and Butch is like, "Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Calm down." He's like, "You're losing the actual music and the beat. You're playing it way too fast," which we have the tendency to do. The song "Stop" changed a lot--with the bass, especially; there weren't any chord changes during the chorus, it was just a straight kind of constant. But that definitely changed for the record and actually put in a lot of melody. That's a mediocre example at best. Sorry. [Laughs]

Earlier this year, you did a PSA for Rock the Vote. What do you think about this year's election?

It seems to ever be changing week to week. The economy's been in the s----er. I don't know. I'd definitely rather see Obama than McCain win. I think we need to put on a better face for the world. It really drives me crazy when you hear Americans talking, "It's us. We don't need to worry about anybody else." It's a big f---ing world and it's all tied together with the economy. I think Obama would be a much better ambassador than McCain, who has been quoted as saying, "I hate gooks" before. That's not really who I want as president.

Do you ever worry that your politics might get in the way of the music?

No, I don't think they do at all, really. We all have our own politics personally. We're not a preachy band. I don't know if you've ever seen us live. We don't go on stage and grandstand. We're not preachers. We play the music and hopefully people can take away good stuff from it. We're not pretending to be smarter or wiser than the audience. We want to be with the audience.