Page 30 - ION Indie Magazine SeptOct 2021 Issue

Adam: I’d say the most meaningful song to me personally is
‘Shane.’ It deals with a lot of the current political climate with
racism, bigotry, and hate in the world. It details a story of just
one of the many accounts in this world of hatred. There are
some jabs at our ex-president as well. We’re not an
inherently political band, but this song does teeter on the
brink. I think it's important to take a stand at this point in time.

Tim: The song with the most significance is ‘Roscoe
Avenue.’ At its core, the song is about the passing of a good
friend named Andy Hull. He passed away young, and I felt a
lot of guilt about how his brief adulthood turned out.
Underneath the surface, there is a lot more context. The day
we found out about Andy, I was playing the final show with
my band of many years and was having a rough time with
my partner. My whole world was in a state of flux. I felt I didn’t
have a place to belong and torched a lot of bridges. This one
bad day formed a lot of my songwriting for a while. Also,
‘Those Looks Cover Words’ because it is the first thing we
wrote entirely as a band in the room.

Bob: ‘What Does this Switch Do,’ - one of the first songs of
the unfinished record that I listened to before I was formerly
a member of the band. It was also one of the first songs I
learned when I was asked to join the band; one of the first
songs I played live. It’s a fun song to play with interesting
bass parts and catchy hooks. The lyrics are relatable to
anyone who has been through tough relationships.

KP: Talk a bit about the songwriting process. Is it
collaborative or does someone in the band do the
songwriting?

Ace: When we first started getting together, myself or Tim
would bring in a song mostly complete, then we would work
out the arrangements in the room as the other guys came up
with their parts. Recently, we have been having some great
success writing musically in the room together. We tend to
start with the music, then someone comes in with lyrics.
There is going to be a large portion of songs on the next
record that we wrote in the room together.

Adam: About half the songs have existed in one form or
another. Sometimes they are brought in as pieces of songs,
catchy riffs, or sometimes fully arranged. Then I write drums
to these parts. Lyrics are solely handled by Ace and Tim.

Tim: On ‘No Simple Landing’ a lot of songs were written prior
to my arrival, but we had to reshape them for our ever-
changing of players. I had worked in a recording studio at my
home and used my downtime to write and record on my own.
This led to me having a few fully completed songs that I
brought to the band. Having developed that personal
workflow, I am always working on material on my own and
writing full band arrangements. I need that to write lyrics. By
the time the songs get to the guys, the bass/drums are
typically rewritten. Now that we have our legs under us as a
four-piece, we are doing a lot better at writing in the room.