Soon after the release of Mad’Ouk, a refreshing collection of experimental tones, bringing together sounds that lovers of groups such Circa Survive, Decoder, Sianvar, would fall for quickly, we had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Josh Horn, so he could give us an introspective look into the band’s newest EP, track by track.
For your listening convenience, we have included each track so you are able to follow along.
1. Imperious
“The writing process came about in one take of rehearsing the new song. Then just like that the lyrics came about. This was a song the band was playing for about a year as an intro to our set and after adding Scotto and Josh we made some adjustments and tracked it as a single locally. We later re-tracked a studio version in Nashville with the other 5 songs.”
2. Ascian
“Ascian had been an idea for a couple of years now. The process was kind of slow but very rewarding, as it’s one of our personal favorites to play live. This felt this song showed growth in the band. For a good chunk of 2019 Ascian and Imperious were a main part of our live set (mainly because the other songs were not fully fledged out until late summer).”
3. Nickel & Dime
“This song was written by Hunter (guitarist) mainly. He laid out the entire framework then I (Josh) had added 2nd guitar melodies creating a new feel to the song. In the studio we added a lot of effects and pedals to the bass parts making it even more dynamic. The lyrics around ‘Nickel & Dime’ were influenced by not having a home, feelings my mother once experienced and somewhat made me feel connected. Lyrically the song was written on the road on the way to the studio and while in Nashville. A lot of the melodies were written in studio as well which really helped build an organic flow. The track really sticks out as the sort of ‘odd-ball’ on the record and was also us experimenting with our lighter side being that the record is mostly high energy tracks.”
4. Alew (feat. Johnny O’Hagan, formerly of Idlehands)
“I (Josh) and Hunter mainly wrote this song. It started off as a riff Hunter had that we thought may be a bit too wild for us, but after a lot of jamming and adding in drums, we created something that felt like more cohesive. Scotto (bass) later added some unique bass melodies making this one of the most technical songs on the record and definitely our heaviest. ‘Alew’ really stood out as an experimental track. It let me have a fresh outlook. Jonny O’Hagan, of Idlehands, brought beautiful harmonies, displaying the antagonizing character of the song. This track is one of the most fun songs to play as a band and we still have yet to play it for a live audience. We look forward to playing it and it will definitely be in our future sets.”
5. Rase
“Rase was a fun one, as the idea was to create a very atmospheric setting, in which I feel we accomplished. This song really came to life in the studio; we layered a lot of reverb and modulation to create a washy feel. This is definitely a big listener track we felt, but it also is a joy to play live. As a band, this is one of our best sounding live tracks and creates a unique vibe for the crowd.”
6. Silhouette
“Hunter and Dustyn (drums) jammed this one out quite a bit. This song was very hands on being that we coordinated a lot of pauses such as the transitions. Silhouette has a lot of changes. We generally close our live set with this song similar to how the record closes. This song started as a long loop that we constantly kept tweaking and adding new parts until it flowed. The outro is a lot of fun to play and was a blast to write multiple intertwining melodies sort of battling each other through space.”
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