Bayside singer Anthony Raneri on the punk band's new album, unusual release cycle and songwriting styles

Bayside, a veteran punk rock band out of New York, changed things up with their latest album, “There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive.”

The new album, scheduled for an April 5 release date, will combine 2022’s “The Red EP” and 2023’s “The Blue EP” with an additional five more songs.

“It’s crazy to have people spend time with every song on the record,” singer Anthony Raneri said in a phone call earlier this month from Nashville. “We sort of tricked people into having to do that. We’re so used to putting out records, and two or three singles get the spotlight, and those are the songs that wind up in the set.

“Those are the songs people ask us to play, and the rest of the record kind of gets overshadowed by that. So this was a way like, we’re eight singles or something into the record, and we feel confident that we could go out play any one of those songs live and people are going to know them, so that’s a huge win for us.”

According to Raneri, the move was intentional to give each of the tracks — like their most recent single “Miracle” — a bit more life, especially in light of their last album, 2019’s “Interrobang,” which was announced two weeks before it released.

“It gives everyone a chance, you know, because there are songs that are considered deep cuts probably on our records that we think are really great songs, that never really got a shot,” he said. “So, with this, every song has a shot, and the fans get to decide which are the standouts.”

Pittsburgh area fans will get to make their opinion known on their favorites when Bayside brings its Worse Things Than Being Alive tour to the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks on April 3. They’ll be joined by Finch, Armor For Sleep and Winona Fighter.

Bayside will be opening their tour in Pittsburgh, and Raneri said he was already looking forward to eating a Primanti Bros. sandwich, seeing his friends in Punchline and having coffee right down the street from the Roxian at Black Forge. (Unfortunately, it closed last year.) It will also be the first tour dates since he and his wife welcomed a daughter to the family in January — “my wife’s a superhero, so she’ll hold it down,” he said.

Bayside formed in 2000, and their new album isn’t a reinvention of the band, instead honing in on their classic sound and experimenting around that.

“What we try to accomplish with every Bayside record now is we always, it’s always important to sound like Bayside,” Raneri said. “But we try to just figure out how to be the best version of Bayside now.”

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When Raneri is off duty from the band, he often sits in on songwriting sessions in Nashville, comparing it to a day job. Although he loves playing fast, aggressive music with Bayside, he’s found fun in writing in other styles.

“It is almost like cosplay, like a country singer or folk singer or pop singer or whatever,” he said. “It’s cool to pretend to be one for a day, but like I said, I always like coming back and playing this stuff.”

Bayside formed in 2000 when Raneri was just 17, and he wouldn’t mind a career similar to punk veterans like Bad Religion or the Dropkick Murphys.

As it is, they can pick and choose when they want to go on tour, which makes life much more manageable. He also said he’s appreciates the band’s fans, who have supported new material throughout their career — “a lot of bands don’t get that opportunity,” he said.

“I think we have the best fans in the world. I think everybody says that, but I think it’s true for us. Our fans have stuck with us for all this time. The band has only gotten bigger and bigger every year, which most fans of other bands, they stop listening at some point, they stop listening to the new stuff, they stop coming to the shows. We’ve never really done that kind of album anniversary tours. We avoid sort of a nostalgia as much as we can. But the fans come along with us, like when we try new stuff, they trust us.”

And it sounds like that will be the case with the new album, whose title isn’t as bleak as one might think.

“To me, the title of the record kind of means that things aren’t so bad. So it kind of means the opposite to me that being alive is not so bad,” Raneri said. “I think the record is a lot of me complaining about a lot of things. I touch a lot on mental health, on getting older, on the world changing, but, you know, there are worse things than being alive. Being alive is not so bad.”