Saint Asonia released Flawed Design on October 25, 2019, through Spinefarm Records. Four years after their debut, singer Adam Gontier and guitarist Mike Mushok were opening their second album to other writers and revisiting unfinished material. Its lead single, “The Hunted,” had already spent years waiting for the right home.
Mushok and Godsmack’s Sully Erna originally worked on the song with a movie soundtrack in mind. That placement never happened. Gontier told Audio Ink Radio that he loved what they played him, and he and Mushok made changes before returning to it in the studio. Gontier developed different melodies, while Erna’s writing remained part of the song. Asking him to guest on the recording followed naturally from that involvement, putting the two singers together on a track Erna had helped create.
The video reunited Saint Asonia with director P.R. Brown, who had made “Better Place” and worked on the band’s artwork. Gontier described its concept as a creepy variation on Little Red Riding Hood, with a straightforward visual approach to match the song.
The wider writing process was a deliberate change. Speaking to May the Rock Be With You, Gontier explained that he and Mushok had essentially written the first album themselves. For the follow-up, they sought outside contributions and chose producer Brian Sperber, whose previous work included Staind. The lineup had changed, too. Gontier’s cousin Cale joined on bass, with Staind drummer Sal Giancarelli behind the kit. The four musicians rehearsed together in Massachusetts in January 2019 before recording. For Adam and Cale, the partnership reached back to playing music together as children.
“Sirens” showed what those additional writing relationships could produce. Gontier told Loudwire that Starset’s Dustin Bates and Thirty Seconds to Mars collaborator Stevie Aiello sent him the initial idea. They developed it by exchanging material remotely. When the band considered a guest singer, Sharon den Adel was the person they most hoped would agree. Gontier had followed Within Temptation for years; he later told Audio Ink Radio that “Sirens” became one of his favorite songs on the album.
Opening the process to other musicians also coincided with a difficult period in Gontier’s life. Work had taken longer than expected, and he had stepped away to address personal problems. By the time he returned, becoming a father had changed his perspective. The songs carried those experiences alongside his questions about how people presented themselves to the outside world.
The title track examined the pressure to appear perfect, particularly on social media. In a Loudwire Nights interview, Gontier included himself among the people who struggled to accept their imperfections. That admission mattered to the album’s premise: he was writing about behavior he recognized in his own life, including the impulse to scrutinize photographs before sharing them.
“This August Day” dealt with something much more painful. Gontier told Loudwire that he had been undergoing treatment for addiction and ended up in an emergency room while his son was being born elsewhere. The song addressed missing that birth and the changes surrounding it. He wanted listeners to understand that the writing came from events that had deeply affected him. “Nothing’s contrived on this album,” he said.
“Ghost” explored loss and addiction through another collaboration, with Bates and Breaking Benjamin’s Keith Wallen contributing to the writing. In October 2020, Saint Asonia extended that collaborative approach to the song’s video. They invited fans to show what it meant to them, then assembled the finished piece from their clips and artwork.
