By December 2005, five songs had been written for "The Suffer & the Witness". The rest of the songs were written in January 2006, in a practice space in West Side, Chicago. McIlrath noted that the band procrastinated writing the songs for several weeks, leaving them with only a three-week period to write the entire album. The band was not affected by this added pressure however; according to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them." Unlike the stressful recording sessions for "Siren Song of the Counter Culture", the band members had a much more enjoyable time with "The Suffer & the Witness", as they no longer sought the approval of their parent company Geffen Records.