The drum parts and a few basic tracks were completed at Cello. Drummer Zach Lind said he felt into the habit of doing simple drum patterns during the making of "Clarity" and "Bleed American", but when working with Norton, he pushed Lind to challenge himself. Sessions then moved to Harvey Moltz's home studio in Tucson, Arizona. Most of the album was recorded at the home, which belonged to a friend of the band's. Adkins said the group simply wanted a change of scenery from California, as Tucson helped them work without distractions. During the course of the sessions, they band recorded up to 9 or 10 versions of each track. Additional recording was done by the band at Tempe Studio. Strings were recorded at Oceanway Studios in Los Angeles with Jake Davies, who was assisted by Greg Burns. Rich Costey and Davies acted as additional engineers; the latter also did digital editing. Sessions were concluded in May 2004, with mixing taking place in mid-June with Costey at Cello. He was assisted in this process by Claudius Mittendorfer with secondary engineer Dan Leffler Costey mixed "Drugs or Me" at Avatar Studios in New York City with secondary engineer Ross Petersen. Ted Jensen then mastered the recordings at Sterling Sound in New York City. Musically, "Futures" has been described as alternative rock, arena rock, emo, pop punk, pop rock and power pop. It saw the band shy away from the pop-influenced sound of "Bleed American" and expand on the mood of "Clarity" (1999); they incorporated more guitar solos, which Linton had been insisting on, and complex guitar lines. Adkins viewed the release as a sequel to "Clarity", which shared its denser production. When working on material, Adkins would show the band the rough outline of it, which the rest of the members would flesh out and potentially add further instrumentation, such as piano. Discussing the title, Adkins said it could be perceived in different ways: "It’s pessimistic, it’s optimistic, and hopeful, and greedy all at the same time." Some of the material on the album dated back to when they were recording "Bleed American", while others existed for two weeks before they entered the studio for "Futures". Linton said Norton provided a number of "really good" song ideas in regards to the sound and final arrangements. Norton helped the band think about transitions between sections in songs; previously Adkins felt "the best transition was none …