[1] The album was supported by six singles: "Paranoia", "Bad Vibrations", "Bullfight", "Naivety", "We Got This", and "Same About You", and was met with widespread critical acclaim.
[2] In December 2011, it was announced that A Day to Remember had plans of pressing charges against their label, Victory, due to breach of contract.
Claiming withheld royalties of over $75,000, the group had reportedly started legal action against Victory on May 31 of that year.
Vocalist Jeremy McKinnon explained the band was "doing our own thing, taking it easy and trying to recharge the batteries".
[6] At the start of 2015, the group rented a cabin at Horsetooth Reservoir, located in Dakota Hogback ridge, west of Fort Collins, Colorado.
[12] For their past two albums, What Separates Me from You (2010) and Common Courtesy (2013), the group had trouble naturally writing heavy songs.
[9] McKinnon states that the album's title, Bad Vibrations, is derived from feelings of stress and anxiety.
[7] The breakdown during the song is heavily inspired by a drum pattern that Mark Castillo of Bury Your Dead would play, according to Shelnutt.
[17] "Naivety", written by McKinnon, Skaff and Descendents drummer Bill Stevenson,[16] talks about loss of innocence.
[17] "We Got This", written by McKinnon, Westfall and Skaff,[16] is about when you are a young person in "a music scene people don't really understand or respect, but then going to these shows and realising this is something you love".
[9] "Same About You", written by McKinnon, Westfall, Skaff and drummer Alex Shelnutt,[16] talks about a person who tells you something, which causes you to look at them differently.
"Turn Off the Radio", written by McKinnon, Westfall, Wade and Skaff,[16] was another song that was intended for Common Courtesy.
The song's original bridge contained a rap beat and was intended to feature rapper Rick Ross.
"[19] "Forgive and Forget", written by McKinnon, the band's former guitarist Tom Denney, Skaff and Wade,[16] is about being addicted to a significant other.
[16] The band demoed all of the material they had live-in-the-studio with producers Stevenson and Jason Livermore at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado.
[9] McKinnon spoke to TeamRock about his initial concerns when preparing to record the album, stating that he was "terrified" and "stuck in this weird, high-stress mindset every day".
[10] Selecting the material to be recorded for Bad Vibrations, the group narrowed the number of songs down to those they loved the most regardless of genre.
[9] The recording sessions were engineered by Livermore, Stevenson, Andrew Berlin, Chris Beeble and Wade.
Adrienne Short played violin and viola on "Forgive and Forget", "Reassemble", "Negative Space", "Justified", "We Got This" and "Exposed".
Cortada previously created artwork for a number of the band's albums and singles, as well as designs for their tours and music videos.
[22] He made a video of the layout and sent it to the band who loved the idea but weren't a fan of the illustration style.
He called the final artwork "a pretty intense and outrageous art piece" made of "illustrations, all hand drawn, pen-to-paper, and scanned".
Later in the video, the band is being chased by a figure that Loudwire considered "a cross between Lost's smoke monster and Disturbed's "The Guy" mascot".
[33] "Bullfight" was premiered on BBC Radio 1's Rock Show with Daniel P Carter,[34] before being released as a single on July 25.
[44] In December 2016, the band embarked on the "Bad Vibes" tour, which began in Australia with support from Of Mice & Men[45] and Tonight Alive.
magazine compared Bad Vibrations to the band's earlier work, calling it their "heaviest record since 2007's For Those Who Have Heart.
"[2] Renaldo of Punknews.org wrote, "On this particular album, [A Day to Remember] achieve just the right amount of flair and flavour to spice things up with character and believe it or not, lyrical depth."