The Neighbors Are Listening bulk of the recording was done between April and September of 2005 with touch ups on songs in October, and November. Mastering was done in December. The release show was at Lestats Coffeehouse, San Diego, CA January 15, 2006.

Originally, Alex approached David Ybarra(producer of the album) to make an EP of 5 or 6 songs with a band sound behind the singer-songwriter and his acoustic guitar. During that summer, Alex met some new people and had enough drama to write frequently. Instead of an EP, Alex decided to push himself to make a full album.

"Grey", "State I'm In", "Love Me Like You Do", "Somewhere", "Something Better", "Fool Again", and "Hermit" were all written before Alex met David.

"Far Too Long" was Alex's response to his many friends wanting him to go out and 'watch you do your charade' when his response was 'I've gotta work'.

"Midnight Driver" was written to be a conversation between two strangers in a hotel lobby in the middle of the night. It was missing an ending that with David's help, got completed.

Alex wrote "Baby It's Alright...I Guess" the day after he recorded a guitar riff and rambled over it.

"Wonderful For Me" is a sarcastic turn of the phrase directed to the woman at the heart of the drama that summer.

"Sunrise" was written near the end of the sessions when Alex realized that he didn't have the album title in any songs. So he wrote a song about two people waking up and not caring what others said about them.

"The Hype" is the 'secret track' since those had always been a favorite of Alex's. Its a quiet song of accepting the responsibilities of the music business and staying humble in the process.