I The Mighty take us through their new album, ‘Connector’, track by track. Have a listen to the stream of it and then read along for maximum effectiveness.
An Epilogue as a Prologue
A beginning as an end. The name is in reference to the end of the record, which uses the same chord progression and some of the same lyrics. I’ve wanted to do something cyclical like that for a record for quite some time now and was happy to finally make it work. I bought a POG 2 (octave) pedal and was messing around with it in my living room when I wrote the intro’s progression, and the lyrics came about 30 minutes later after my friends got super bored with me being obsessed over my new toy and ignoring them. I knew lyrically it would set the right tone for the record but also tie in with the final installment of ‘The Frame’ Trilogy… so I in turn, got very giddy…
Lady of Death
With this record I found myself returning to more of the story-telling songwriting approach that I had used for the majority of our discography leading up to Satori. The concept of “Lady of Death” came from this woman I saw one day while I was running errands around San Mateo, CA, where Ian and I live. She was staring into the sky, middle fingers up and cursing at the top of her lungs. Perhaps she felt like her transient lifestyle was somehow the result of a bearded man in the clouds not paying her enough attention and not her obvious drug addiction… Maybe she’s right, who am I to propose the laws of the universe? What she did accomplish, however, was sprouting the little day dream in my head, which led to the story of “Lady of Death”. Maybe I’ll find her one day and thank her.
The Lying Eyes of Miss Erray
The name of the song, while being a nod to my favorite band, Coheed and Cambria, has nothing to do with them or their story. “Miss Erray” is that figurative girl in every guy’s life, whom immediately takes hold of you the second your gaze falls upon her. You pretend it’s love, though it’s clearly lust and the world goes black with the exception of this world of color in the shape of a woman. Her hold on you eventually fades when you realize how blinded you were by her physical beauty and how uninterested you are in her mental demeanor. So the curse breaks and you find a new place to lay your head. Being a hopeless romantic, this seems to happen to me time and time again.
Psychomachia
“The Psychomachia” was a poem written by the Latin poet Prudentius in the early fifth century A.D.. The poem was the first known use of the devil on one shoulder, angel on the other idea; which ties in perfectly with the first line of the song. The plot of the song, which plays off of that imagery, is written very specifically about a certain band. I’ve debated since it’s tracking whether or not I wanted to be open about who I wrote this about and I guess I’ve decided to take the higher road…though I’m sure it’ll come out eventually. It’s basically an open letter to said band. If there’s one group that doesn’t deserve their fame, not only from a gross lack of talent or ability but from an extremely unregulated moral compass…it is them. It’s probably wise for me to leave it at that.
Adrift
“Adrift” was written on a day when educating myself on world current events became much too disheartening. A mixture of reading about the atrocities and attempted genocide overseas, combined with the first world whining of America’s spoiled and bias youth flooding my Facebook wall led to a violent slam of my laptop and the writing of this song. Besides the mention in the first verse about feeling this needless attachment to our cell phones and alternative cyber lives, the majority of the song touches upon religion. A philosophy of religion class I took in college taught me how almost all major religions of the world (excluding Buddhism, which is actually pretty intriguing) are essentially the same. There are multiple religions that pre-date Christianity that are almost identical. All of these man-made carbon copies of each other, some details removed and the characters names amended, that people will literally murder entire civilizations over… It’s like children in kindergarten arguing over what color crayon is best. There is no right answer. See the advantages of each color and go draw something your parents can be proud of.
Slow Dancing Forever
In that same class in which we studied every major world religion, we also spent a great deal of time studying ghosts and paranormal phenomenon. It was indeed the most badass class I ever took. I have always had a very genuine fascination with ghosts, as well as aliens and have always enjoyed working such things into songs. I wrote the lyrics to ‘Slow Dancing Forever’ on a drive back home after a bartending gig in SF, while listening to the demo Blake made of it on his computer. The story of a man’s recently passed girlfriend visiting him in the night to warn him not to board the flight for her funeral. He convinces himself it’s a dream and although he feels her hand on his shoulder as he locks the door to his home and feels her tug on his coat before he boards the plane, he doesn’t heed her pleas. As the wing breaks and the plane begins to plummet from 20,000 feet, he can’t help but smile and say: “Baby, I’m on my way. Now we don’t have to wait.” I like to think he had a feeling it was real the whole time and went through with it all anyway.
Friends (Feat: Max Bemis)
Before I say anything else, can I just say how unbelievably humbling it is to hear one of your idols singing lyrics that YOU wrote on YOUR OWN SONG… Every time I hear Max come in at the top of the bridge, I get this stupid smile on my face. The idea for Max lending his talents came from Chris mentioning one day when we were in pre-production for the song, that it sounded like I “tapped into my inner Max Bemis” during the bridge. When I agreed, he followed it up with the suggestion of having him on the track. So, I texted Max, who was immediately into the idea and the a month later we had the final truck. Musically, the verses remind me of something from Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”, which is one of my favorite records and the choruses feel like a throwback to the mid 2000s era of the scene that influenced much of our sound from the beginning. This definitely became one of my favorite tracks on the record.
Playing Catch With .22
I wrote most of the lyrics to “Playing Catch” while riding a Razor scooter in circles around the Madden brothers’ studio parking lot. The song deals with the decision you have to make when you end up falling in love with a long-time friend. Do you tell them and risk ruining this beautiful friendship? Or do you bottle it up and potentially miss out on the love of your life? It’s a catch 22. Even if they were to feel the same way and you were to date…what happens if you break up? Your beautiful friendship is ruined forever. Well, I say spill your guts. The risk is worth the reward. The name of the song came about from me likening this situation to juggling a rifle. The analogy and imagery went hand in hand.
Andrew’s Song
I feel like the universe decided for me that, at the beginning of the writing process for every new I the Mighty record, whatever relationship I’m in must come to an end. Not wanting to repeat myself and write another angry half break-up record like Satori, I dealt with it in ways other than pouring my heart out through pen and paper. However, my ex has a dog named Andrew that, over the years, I have become incredibly attached to. Many nights, when I was cuddling with him and paying arguably more attention to him than her, she would ask me when I was finally going to write a song about the majesty and indescribable complexity that is Andrew. Typically I’d reply that it was already written and improv some terrible melody describing whatever he was doing at the moment and how his paws smelled like a hamster cage. Anyway, the first line describes the song much better than this long-winded explanation ever could: “You always told me to write a song about Andrew, little did you know that it would be about you.”
The Hound and the Fox
I have a very open-book frustration with the media and its unadulterated lack of responsibility when it comes to reporting accurate or unbiased news. The biggest culprit of this is, without a doubt, the horrible excuse for journalism known as Fox News. I fear that if I delve into this any further it will derail from this into a full on rant and let’s face it…neither of us need that negativity in our lives right now. “The Hound and the Fox” is about an unstable (yet heroic) man, who walks into the Fox News building threatening and demanding that they oust themselves publicly for the money hungry, rating’s obsessed, and fact fudging “journalists” they are. Fox, you should add the word “entertainment” before the word news.
(No) Faith in Fate
The dating world is hard. I see many people end up just kind of “settling” with something far less than a passionate love, simply because they’ve grown so used to each other, or because their biological clock started ticking louder than they could continue to drown out. On the flip side, I also know all too well that feeling of doubt that you’re supposed to be with anyone at all. Sometimes after a break up, we get so down and out about ourselves that we deem ourselves incapable of excepting or reciprocating love again. Those two concepts are what this song is about. I fear to go into more specific detail for fear that a certain somebody will read this and read between the lines, so I’ll wrap up the conceptual part here. However, I will add that the end of this track is probably one of the simplest, but in my opinion, most powerful pieces of music this band has written to date. We were also very lucky and blessed to meet miss Sierra Kay of the band VersaEmerge at our video shoot for “Playing Catch With .22” and she was kind enough to lend her lovely voice to our song and improve it exponentially.
The Frame I: Betrayal in the Watchtower
“The Frame” trilogy has now spanned over four years and three releases. It was also the very last thing written for this record. I finished the lyrics to this song just hours before tracking it in the studio. It was my biggest source of anxiety throughout the entire process because I felt that we had done such a good job building up to this epic first installment and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to top “The Frame II: Keep Breathing”, which I considered a standout track on our last record, Satori. When it’s all said and done, I feel like it ended up being just the right song to send the trilogy off on the right note. It proved a little difficult to get so much lyrical plot into one song, while also fitting in a musical call back to each of the prior songs in the trilogy, but it all came together. I think as a band we consider it one of the strongest choruses on the record and there are a number of little “Easter eggs” for those who are really familiar with the other two installments. I hope people that have been with us since our Karma Never Sleeps EP see it as a fitting way to wrap it all up.
Like what you hear? Grab yourself a copy.