Laura: Both parts of "The Collector" songs were the most focused songs I had ever written, and it was that way from the very first spark of an idea about them. I was on tour, looking up at one of our shirts, inspired by the poster from the movie, "Maniac." It's a picture of a guy holding a girl's decapitated head and the slogan reads, "I warned you not to go out tonight." For some reason, I started getting so pissed about that, and what serial killers in general represent. In this scene, they are so glorified. Read the lyrics from a good percentage of the bands out there, and they are all about embodying some psycho and gutting some chick's body. Serial killers from the Son of Sam to any fabricated movie villain have all had this powerful control over the fears of an entire gender in this country. So I decided to turn it around a little bit. I love satire in songs, books, movies� So instead of writing a song in which I'm some killer on a rampage, I decided to throw myself into the victim's head and tear this guy down. He's stealing body parts from as many women as he can, trying to build the perfect girl. But there's a catch; his Pinocchio story will never come true. Frankenbarbie's heart will never beat for him.

When I finally got my story down, it ended up being twice as long as the music. But unlike my villain, I wouldn't cut up my baby, so we split it into two parts, and the music for the two songs was perfect. John Strachan from the Funeral Pyre got to be my Maniac because he's evil and we go head to head all the time. When I asked him if he would do it, all I had to say was, "Wanna play the killer in one of our songs? You get to call me 'b*****' and tell me to shut my mouth�" He was all for it.

Ben: This song is special to the record and to the band because it was the first one we wrote for this album, and the first song LTC had written with Ryan and Jon in the fold. I love it because it has such an 80s thrash feel, super powerful and straightforward, but crushing. The lyrics are so dark and fit perfectly with the music, and the end of the song is probably one of the heaviest slam parts we have ever written. There are a lot of musical elements in this song we had never tried before, like a ripping thrash wah- solo by Ryan, which turned out great. The second part of the Collector features John Strachan of the Funeral Pyre on vocals which turned out amazing. It sounds evil as hell, and the two songs blend together great. Both are totally thrash, and probably the heaviest part of the record.