Common Courtesy is the fifth studio album by the American rock band A Day to Remember. The album was self-released on October 8, 2013. Songs for the album were written in mid-2011. Recording started in early 2012 and continued into the following March, the same month the recordings were mixed. During that time, an unmixed version of "Violence (Enough Is Enough)" was streamed from the band's website. The band then embarked on the Right Back at It Again Tour in March 2013, with the namesake of the tour being the new song which was performed at each show. From mid-August to late-September, the group released webisodes to tie-in with the album. "Dead & Buried", another song that would appear on the album, was played at each show on their month-long House Party Tour, which began in September 2013.

In December 2011, the band was involved in a lawsuit with its label Victory that had been partly resolved a few days before the album's release. This lawsuit led to the band's initial digital self-release of the album in October; a physical release followed in November which included three bonus tracks. Common Courtesy charted at number 34 in the UK and number 37 in the U.S., and was met with critical acclaim, with critics praising the album's consistent sound and defiant attitude toward Victory. "Right Back at It Again" and "End of Me" served as the album's singles; the former charted at number 33 on the Alternative Songs chart and at number 40 on the Mainstream Rock Songs chart in the U.S., while the latter reached at number 40 on Alternative Songs and at number 26 on Mainstream Rock Songs.

Shortly after the end of Warped Tour in July 2011, A Day to Remember took a break to compose new material. In an interview with Alternative Press in November, vocalist Jeremy McKinnon said after the band finished touring Europe, it would be recording its next album. McKinnon also said he had "been writing constantly for the course of the two years" while the band was touring, and he was "really happy" with the material accumulated up to that point.

On December 15, it was announced A Day to Remember had plans to press charges against their label Victory Records due to breach of contract. Claiming withheld royalties of over $75,000, the group reportedly started legal action against the label on May 31 that year. Victory responded with a statement saying the lawsuit was about the band's refusal to fulfill its five-album contractual commitment to Victory and its new-found desire to move to a major label. A Day to Remember gave Alternative Press a statement saying:

A Day To Remember would like to make it clear that they did not announce nor seek any attention regarding their ongoing suit with Victory Records. This information has been public record since May of 2011 and they have no intention of speaking publicly or disparagingly regarding their disagreement with Victory. A Day To Remember will continue to release music for their fans.

In January 2012, guitarist Kevin Skaff said A Day To Remember would be recording after they had finished touring in early May. The band was aiming to have the new album completed by August, with the intention that the project would be released later that year. On April 4, McKinnon said via Twitter that the band might be recording. On May 9, they said at a live performance that their new album would be titled Common Courtesy. In September 2012, the band said it was working with Chad Gilbert, who had previously worked with them on Homesick (2009) and What Separates Me from You (2010). While recording Common Courtesy, the band played a hometown gig on November 21 as a celebration of the American Thanksgiving holiday.

A video counting down from the number 21 was posted on the band's website in early December; in the video, McKinnon stated, "this is some of the best material that we've written. I know people say that [about] every album but I know it is." On December 21, the band released the track "Violence (Enough Is Enough)", which was confirmed to be a track on Common Courtesy. McKinnon said the music video for "Violence (Enough Is Enough)" was planned to be filmed and released the same day, but the band was unable to do so. Despite producer Gilbert stating on October 17, 2012, the album might be finished within a week, the process was still only partly completed when "Violence (Enough Is Enough)" was released in December. According to McKinnon, the track is "really not meant to be political as it might sound [...] it's that feeling that things are out of your hands. I wanted it to have this dark, ominous feeling."

In an interview with Jennifer J. Walker of Kerrang!, McKinnon stated there would be only five heavy songs on the album. He explained that the goal for the album was to serve as a "reflection on our history, on how small-town kids playing music that doesn't really make sense to the world ended up on the main stages of some of the biggest music festivals around the world". In the same interview, McKinnon confirmed that the opening track was titled "City of Ocala". Work on the album was still in progress when McKinnon updated fans in February 2013; he later explained that the delay in releasing the project was not due to the band's lawsuit against Victory Records, but because of the large amount of material the band had created for the album and the difficulty of pooling what would be featured on the album. The group had recorded "three or four albums' worth" of material; McKinnon said, "If you're putting out 15-plus tracks on a record, that could be dangerous. It's hard for even your biggest fans to stay with you that long." In the February 2013 issue of Alternative Press, McKinnon said the band had 40 songs to work with, an unprecedented amount of material during the production of any of the band's albums alone.