Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness Explores NYC and Unexpected Success with “Zombies on Broadway”

ABC/Randy HolmesTo record Zombies on Broadway, the second Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness album, Andrew McMahon traveled to a place that's the exact opposite of the wilderness: New York City.

As McMahon tells ABC Radio, he had always wanted to record an album in New York City, even if he has a few negative memories of the Big Apple. After all, he was at a New York City hospital when he was diagnosed with cancer more than a decade ago.

"I think that that experience sort of informed why, despite the fact that I wanted to make a record here for the years before [Zombies on Broadway], I sort of waited so long to come back," McMahon says.

"New York's always represented several different things for me," he continues. "It has been a place that's inspired me, it has been a place of great hope and excitement, but it's also been a place that is very much attached to a difficult moment in my life."

McMahon did discover a different kind of wilderness in New York: new energy, new food, and, of course, lots and lots of people, which ended up inspiring the album's title.

"The 'zombies on Broadway' term...came from muscling my way through a crowd at midnight and how it could have a feeling of a little bit of a horror flick," he explains.

Along with his experience in NYC, Zombies on Broadway documents McMahon's reaction to the unexpected success of his first Wilderness album, which boasted the hit single "Cecilia and the Satellite."

"You have this sort of tension between the beginning of that release, where it was this nervousness," says McMahon. "And then it turned into a celebration. It worked!"

"It's just a little bit of a roller-coaster in that sense," he adds.

Zombies on Broadway is out today.

Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.