What is the origin of this song?
The song began to take form in early 2021 as an interest to explore more on a minimalistic approach on writing new material for our upcoming third full-length album. It was a grueling process trying to express pent-up feelings over the past few years and formulate the right melodies to those emotions.
How was the recording session?
Recording was exhausting! Working as a two-man army and trying to come up with a distinctive sound we were after was really exhausting especially when me and Ronnie communicated through e-mails since he’s based in the Philippines and I am now based in Australia. The song was recorded in through our own home studios, and despite the back-and-forths and 33 structural revisions we made, we were happy with the final result.
What were the references, influences or musical inspiration?
One of the biggest inspiration for us in this single is the concept of minimalism. We really kind of took into heart the phrase, “less is more” as we tried to squeeze a whole chunk of big emotions and deliver it in a small and tidy packaging.
What do you like most about the song and why?
I didn’t use any fuzz in the end! Ha! The funny thing about this song is when the first draft came through, I used my Big Muff pedal to make the last chorus more “explosive”. I knew it from the first minute that there’s something wrong with adding that fuzz on my guitars at the end, but it stuck with me for a few weeks up until we deleted that part and relied more on a more upbeat 16-beat drum riff. Apart from that, I got really personal and expressed a lot of sentiments I felt all through the years in this upcoming third full-length album we’re working on. Our two new singles, “Things I Can’t Change” and “Impending Doom” are just the tip of the iceberg. We hope everyone is just as excited as we are.
What did you most enjoyed of the writing, production and recording process?
The fun part in producing this song and the rest of the new songs is we get to name the songs randomly with a weird working title. “Things I Can’t Change” in particular got randomly named with a certain kind of Asian dish and the word “charcoal” in the end. Which still cracks me up to this day.
What was the most difficult part of the process and how was it overcome?
When my friend EJ Talaroc who is a well-known musician and song writer back in my hometown in the Philippines stepped up and co-produced the song with me, I knew I was in for a grilling of a lifetime. Aside from a very good friend, he gave some insights and feedback that transformed the song’s structure and mood which underwent a rigorous process. I can still remember him saying that: “Imagine a song is a family photo album. Sometimes the parents’ are in the photo, sometimes, it’s just the kids, sometimes they’re all together”. That sentence got stuck in my head while writing this song and really contributed to its overall transformation. In the end, we were happy and proud of what we accomplished in producing the song.
If you could have invited anyone else to collaborate, who would it have been and why?
If I could get Dylan Mattheisen of Tiny Moving Parts or Tyler Joseph of twenty one pilots to scream the line, “I don’t care at all” in the second verse of this song, that would be a dream come true.
What is the biggest challenge to present this song live and how has it been solved?
Synths are one of the biggest challenges for us when we perform live. Especially with this song, we’re heading into a direction where the synth provides a texture that really encapsulates the entire mood of the song. These days, I have a midi controller next to me when performing live, and sometimes I miss to hit a button which plays the synth. I guess, we just have to work on playing with the synth as a backing track and hook it up to our monitors. Alternatively, if there’s anyone who’s willing to press a few buttons for us live, we’d welcome you with open arms!
Recommend us a song that you have heard lately and that you like.
Dream Theater – Song 09 (Pale Blue Dot) Demo 2018.
With years of experience writing music together, the Filipino duo, Ronnie and Chase found their own definition of indie music; mixing elements of rock, mid-western emo, synth-wave, and pop to blend a distinct kind of sound that elevates and soars through among the common taste. Formed in 2013, the band got it’s name randomly on a lazy Sunday afternoon at Chase’s basement. Although they stood by the band’s weird name over the years, they never claimed they were flat-earthers nor have any connection of the sort.