That evening, he received the songs from the studio and posted two demos ("I Mostly Copy Other People" and "Never Say "I Told You So"") on his Myspace profile.

Gillespie was recording with Underoath (for Define the Great Line) at the time and, as their drummer and co-vocalist, was in a several week period between tracking drums and doing the vocals.

To keep himself productive during this lull, he wrote a bunch of songs[1] that differed from the band's sound and fit a more alternative rock vein.

[5] "Dirty and Left Out" also features an additional vocal from Sunny Day Real Estate frontman Jeremy Enigk, who grew up with Sprinkle.

"Say This Sooner" was mixed by David Bendeth with engineer Dan Korneff at the House of Loud in Elmwood Park, New Jersey.

"[11] Alternative country-influenced[3] "Dirty and Left Out" was written after Gillespie and Sprinkle listened to Ocean Beach (1995) by Red House Painters.

[4] Gillespie went to a church, which invited their youth groups[11] at Calvary Fellowship (based in Mountlake Terrace, Washington) to add a choir[4] singing "Amazing Grace" as the chorus.

[10] "Everyone Here Smells Like a Rat" has a mixed Thursday-meets-Oasis vibe to it, and features guest vocals and bass additions from the Starting Line frontman Kenny Vasoli.

[14] The group's touring line-up consisted of Gillespie, guitarists Jay Vilardi and Dusty Redman, bassist Alex Aponte and drummer Kenny Bozich.

[17] A music video was released for "Say This Sooner" in March;[18] it features Gillespie traveling through time, and received heavy rotation on MTV.

[3] Southern Weather was made available for streaming on March 25, before being released as a joint venture between Tooth & Nail and major label Virgin Records on April 3.