Now, while we're not allowed to write about everything we saw (and heard) just yet, we'd be remiss if we didn't share one bit of top-secret studio story with you: Paramore are pretty terrible at basketball.

See, the "studio" they're working in is actually attached to Cavallo's house, and right next to it is a regulation hoop, which means that after laying down a vocal track, Hayley Williams can wander outside and shoot some free throws. Josh Farro can record a guitar solo, then drain some threes. This is theraputic ... a break from the monotony and minutiae of making an album.

And since they've been doing this for more than a month now, you would think they'd be getting pretty good at basketball. Well, you'd be wrong. And we have photographic proof of this, which you can see after the jump.

After wrapping up our interview, 60 percent of the band -- guitarists Farro and Taylor York, plus drummer Zac Farro -- headed out to the court to shoot some hoops (Williams went to the bathroom, bassist Jeremy Davis took a phone call on a skateboard), and invited me to play with them. Luckily, I had my camera.

You can click on the picture to see what happened next ... After clanging about 15 layups off the backboard, York decided his time would be better spent scaling the hoop, then swatting away jump shots. He didn't get a ton of work, though, because the Farro brothers were busy tossing up an assortment of bricks and airballs, much to the delight of Paramore's manager and Cavallo's studio crew.

It was 15 minutes of the most technically unsound basketball we had ever witnessed ... one-handed jumpers, six-inch verticals, dribbles off the foot ... just ugly (kind of like the just-wrapped Nuggets/Hornets playoff series). Pretty soon, everyone just gave up and got soft-serve ice cream from Cavallo's garage.

And that was probably a wise choice. Because ... sometimes, practice doesn't make perfect. Paramore could spend the next year at Cavallo's crib, and it's probably not going to change the following sentence: As basketball players, Paramore are a pretty great band.

At first, it seemed like a rather odd place — a suburb in the middle of nowhere — for a platinum-plus rock act to be hammering away on their new album, but it seems like the surroundings have only brought out the best in the guys (and gal), judging from their sunny demeanors, lack of haggard studio beards, and, well the six brand-new songs we heard.

And while we can't say anything about the new tunes just yet (but know that they do, in fact, rock pretty hard), we do have one rather HUGE bit of news that we can break to you: a release date for the record!

When? Well, read on to find out!

Okay, so get out your calendars. Turns out, according to the band — and confirmed by their labels, Fueled By Ramen and Atlantic — the follow-up to Riot! will be hitting stores this September.

There's no word on a title, or a first single (though Hayley Williams did say that one of the songs we heard "sure sounds like" it's gonna be the first one out of the gate), but fans can look forward to hearing a couple of the new songs this summer, on Paramore's tour with No Doubt.

That's about all we can tell you right now. But trust us, there's going to be plenty more from our studio visit in the coming weeks, so, be on the lookout for a whole bunch of news about the new album, straight from Paramore themselves, over on MTVNews.com

Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got to get back to that soft-serve.