shadowfax1007
New member
01 - "Foreword" (Intro)
"Foreword" is just an intro. If you know what Foley work is, it's my first attempt at Foley work. Basically, it's noises I made in the studio breaking things. We have this CD player and CD burner attached to my computer, which basically just ate #### during the writing process. It gave Chester and I such a hard time! Burning CDs which should have taken a minute were taking 20 minutes, 30 minutes, to an hour. I just got so frustrated with the thing, I put it to the side knowing that I was going to beat it with a baseball bat and that's what I did. I smashed it with a baseball bat on metal table.
02 - "Don't Stay"
That song started off as almost a Spanish or reggae style sound with the guitar. The first time I heard it, I almost thought it sounded like some kind of Latin dancing thing. And it was funny because it didn't sound that way. It just gave me that idea in my head so Brad and I worked on it. Brad ended up coming up with the final thing, which is what you hear there. The nice thing about the song is that it's written really heavy. It's got an interesting bounce to it and that Spanish guitar thing is gone now. Because it came from that place, it has a different vibe to the rhythm of it. I think it's a really fun song. It's going to be a really fun song to play live. It's really energetic.
03 - "Somewhere I Belong"
"Somewhere I Belong" is the single. It started out with an interesting sample. Actually, the first thing you hear in the song is a sample. Now, the sample sounds like keyboards but what it is really, is a guitar progression Chester played.
And this is just to give you an idea. It just shows the evolution of parts. The guitar part that Chester played had a cool progression to it but the sound of it was too acoustic guitar. So what we did was, we flipped it backwards. We effected it. I cut it up into four pieces and instead of arranging it 1-2-3-4, I arranged it 4-3-2-1 because it had been reversed. So it evolved into this thing with the different manipulations in the computer. It evolved into this thing that it is now. In fact, you can hear an early version of that on our "Party At The Pancake Festival" DVD. That's the DVD that came out over a year ago. There's a version of that towards the end of the DVD that's playing. You kind of get an idea of what it sounded like in the second stage of it's lifetime and now it's at it's third when we finished it. So that song is cool for that reason.
Another cool thing about it is that it's really the first time you hear some optimistic views, some optimistic lyrics from us. I think that lyrically this album is a little older, a little more mature hopefully. When we were writing a lot of songs for the first album, we're talking about writing as 18 and 19 year olds. Being 25 now, I feel like I just look at things a tiny bit differently. It doesn't really have much to do with where we're at with the success of the first album and it has everything to do with having seen some of the world and just being a little bit older. So, that's where that comes from. But you'll see overall on the album that it's still the same heavy and melodic and dynamic sound that is kind of our signature thing just with some new evolution added.
04 - "Lying From You"
That song will be impossible for any cover bands to play! Chester just sings too **** hard. I think it's great. I think he did some great stuff on that song. We all are really proud of that song. It's another song with a great keyboard thing that we made, this kind of sample sound at the beginning. It's going to be a really fun song to play live. I could say the same thing for the song that comes after that.
"Lying From You" is about pushing someone away. The title means, making up lies to make another person angry so that they don't want to be around you; which is something that some people do subconsciously in relationship. That's not what my part of the song is about but I know that in a broader sense, when people start feeling negative feelings toward somebody else, just naturally they start doing things to make that person not want to be around them. It's a subliminal reaction. That works with friends. That works with relationships - either way, people do that.
05 - "Hit The Floor"
"Hit The Floor" is interesting because it's got this hip-hop style beat. For all the technical musicians out there, there is one thing that you'll notice right off the bat in the song. When you're writing a big rock chorus, you come in on the one count, on the downbeat, and you're just blaring music. The interesting thing about this song is that it comes on the "and" after the one. It's a syncopated start almost. For the technical musicians out there, you'll notice that it was definitely a chance that we took, that ended up working out. It was a difficult thing to make work and I think we feel pretty proud of it.
Just as a side note, and this leads us into the next song, is what I think makes great writing. It's like being a great athlete. It's when you can do something that's very difficult in a way that seems easy or even natural. You notice a great athlete, doing something that is just impossible for the average person to do but they make it seem so easy. And in that song, that's one element of it. In "Hit The Floor", that's one thing that is really working in that song.
"Hit The Floor" is kind of about people who look down on other people. It's basically about people stepping on other people to get to the top and acting like they're invincible when everybody knows that you can't be that person forever. You can't step on other people to get to wherever you want to get to. It just ends up coming back and biting you. And even in that song there is definitely more to it than that.
06 - "Easier To Run"
In the next song, "Easier To Run", Rob is just killing the drums. It's my favorite song that he's done. You listen to the song and you enjoy the song or whatever but if you listen back and just listen to the drums, he's playing some very complex stuff. A drummer who's only got a couple of years under their belt is not going to be able to play that song. I'm really happy for Rob on that song. I think he really pulled it off.
Lyrically, it's kind of about escapism in a way. I think that's a really familiar topic for myself and for a lot of people in the world. If that weren't the case, then movie ticket sales wouldn't be so high. People go out and do things to get away from their life. That's what the song is about, it's easier to run away from your problems then to face them. We elaborate on that theme in the song. I think that one came together pretty quickly as far as lyrics go, which is nice. For us, it feels like magic when the lyrics to a song just come together in a couple of days. It's really a special kind of feeling.
It's just tough because for a lot of these songs, Chester and I in general, because we don't have the same life, we are talking about different things a little bit but when they come together in the song, it becomes one story. Sometimes I worry if I'm telling too much of my side of it because it is open to interpretation, even from the two of us a little bit, not much, but a little bit.
"Foreword" is just an intro. If you know what Foley work is, it's my first attempt at Foley work. Basically, it's noises I made in the studio breaking things. We have this CD player and CD burner attached to my computer, which basically just ate #### during the writing process. It gave Chester and I such a hard time! Burning CDs which should have taken a minute were taking 20 minutes, 30 minutes, to an hour. I just got so frustrated with the thing, I put it to the side knowing that I was going to beat it with a baseball bat and that's what I did. I smashed it with a baseball bat on metal table.
02 - "Don't Stay"
That song started off as almost a Spanish or reggae style sound with the guitar. The first time I heard it, I almost thought it sounded like some kind of Latin dancing thing. And it was funny because it didn't sound that way. It just gave me that idea in my head so Brad and I worked on it. Brad ended up coming up with the final thing, which is what you hear there. The nice thing about the song is that it's written really heavy. It's got an interesting bounce to it and that Spanish guitar thing is gone now. Because it came from that place, it has a different vibe to the rhythm of it. I think it's a really fun song. It's going to be a really fun song to play live. It's really energetic.
03 - "Somewhere I Belong"
"Somewhere I Belong" is the single. It started out with an interesting sample. Actually, the first thing you hear in the song is a sample. Now, the sample sounds like keyboards but what it is really, is a guitar progression Chester played.
And this is just to give you an idea. It just shows the evolution of parts. The guitar part that Chester played had a cool progression to it but the sound of it was too acoustic guitar. So what we did was, we flipped it backwards. We effected it. I cut it up into four pieces and instead of arranging it 1-2-3-4, I arranged it 4-3-2-1 because it had been reversed. So it evolved into this thing with the different manipulations in the computer. It evolved into this thing that it is now. In fact, you can hear an early version of that on our "Party At The Pancake Festival" DVD. That's the DVD that came out over a year ago. There's a version of that towards the end of the DVD that's playing. You kind of get an idea of what it sounded like in the second stage of it's lifetime and now it's at it's third when we finished it. So that song is cool for that reason.
Another cool thing about it is that it's really the first time you hear some optimistic views, some optimistic lyrics from us. I think that lyrically this album is a little older, a little more mature hopefully. When we were writing a lot of songs for the first album, we're talking about writing as 18 and 19 year olds. Being 25 now, I feel like I just look at things a tiny bit differently. It doesn't really have much to do with where we're at with the success of the first album and it has everything to do with having seen some of the world and just being a little bit older. So, that's where that comes from. But you'll see overall on the album that it's still the same heavy and melodic and dynamic sound that is kind of our signature thing just with some new evolution added.
04 - "Lying From You"
That song will be impossible for any cover bands to play! Chester just sings too **** hard. I think it's great. I think he did some great stuff on that song. We all are really proud of that song. It's another song with a great keyboard thing that we made, this kind of sample sound at the beginning. It's going to be a really fun song to play live. I could say the same thing for the song that comes after that.
"Lying From You" is about pushing someone away. The title means, making up lies to make another person angry so that they don't want to be around you; which is something that some people do subconsciously in relationship. That's not what my part of the song is about but I know that in a broader sense, when people start feeling negative feelings toward somebody else, just naturally they start doing things to make that person not want to be around them. It's a subliminal reaction. That works with friends. That works with relationships - either way, people do that.
05 - "Hit The Floor"
"Hit The Floor" is interesting because it's got this hip-hop style beat. For all the technical musicians out there, there is one thing that you'll notice right off the bat in the song. When you're writing a big rock chorus, you come in on the one count, on the downbeat, and you're just blaring music. The interesting thing about this song is that it comes on the "and" after the one. It's a syncopated start almost. For the technical musicians out there, you'll notice that it was definitely a chance that we took, that ended up working out. It was a difficult thing to make work and I think we feel pretty proud of it.
Just as a side note, and this leads us into the next song, is what I think makes great writing. It's like being a great athlete. It's when you can do something that's very difficult in a way that seems easy or even natural. You notice a great athlete, doing something that is just impossible for the average person to do but they make it seem so easy. And in that song, that's one element of it. In "Hit The Floor", that's one thing that is really working in that song.
"Hit The Floor" is kind of about people who look down on other people. It's basically about people stepping on other people to get to the top and acting like they're invincible when everybody knows that you can't be that person forever. You can't step on other people to get to wherever you want to get to. It just ends up coming back and biting you. And even in that song there is definitely more to it than that.
06 - "Easier To Run"
In the next song, "Easier To Run", Rob is just killing the drums. It's my favorite song that he's done. You listen to the song and you enjoy the song or whatever but if you listen back and just listen to the drums, he's playing some very complex stuff. A drummer who's only got a couple of years under their belt is not going to be able to play that song. I'm really happy for Rob on that song. I think he really pulled it off.
Lyrically, it's kind of about escapism in a way. I think that's a really familiar topic for myself and for a lot of people in the world. If that weren't the case, then movie ticket sales wouldn't be so high. People go out and do things to get away from their life. That's what the song is about, it's easier to run away from your problems then to face them. We elaborate on that theme in the song. I think that one came together pretty quickly as far as lyrics go, which is nice. For us, it feels like magic when the lyrics to a song just come together in a couple of days. It's really a special kind of feeling.
It's just tough because for a lot of these songs, Chester and I in general, because we don't have the same life, we are talking about different things a little bit but when they come together in the song, it becomes one story. Sometimes I worry if I'm telling too much of my side of it because it is open to interpretation, even from the two of us a little bit, not much, but a little bit.
