I just wanted to illustrate how pivotal Christian was at shaping the ideas I had for what would become the Pike Project album, and how he heard a demo and brought out the absolute best in it. For starters, shortly after we released the self-titled "The Great Below" album, I started demo-ing a few new song ideas. One of them was titled "Break Down." It was one of 4 demos I played for Christian when we first started discussions about making the album. So you can now hear that original demo, embedded below, that I played for him.
That's all I had. A chorus and a opening/closing riff. I heard it as, kind of, a Nirvana song, and he turned it into a Nine Inch Nails song. (Or a perfect combo of the two! After all, they're both among my all-time favorite bands.) The mono opening on the final version was something we dreamed up together after the first playback. The song had a very dark tone to it. Something you'd never pick up on otherwise is a weird bit of dialogue in the middle of the track. Christian read random quotes by serial killer Richard Ramirez, and then played them backwards. So that's what's subtly happening during that acoustic break down in the middle section. I was also thinking a lot about Dexter and his (at the time) inevitable return in New Blood. Producing the official podcast, I got the opportunity to read some of the scripts in advance and it influenced the lyrics for this song.
In the last few years, I've gotten into the habit of recording all my music ideas on my iPhone. Either a melody, a riff, or both! These ideas are usually incredibly raw and under normal circumstances, I'd never, ever share these. But I found this second example on my phone recently and it was fun to hear now with context. I'd say the last song I wrote for the album was "Love For The Loveless." And it started simply as this iPhone demo below. I played that for Christian, and in lightning time, we came up with the quirky, pop punk song you hear on the album. (In a higher octave, but the basic melody and riffs are the same.) The title came first. "Love For The Loveless." Thinking of all the awful people that make it their life's mission to weaponize Twitter to hurt others. And I wondered if they had any love in their lives. If they did, would they be this desperate for attention? That they'd lie just to hurt someone they don't even know? Surely, someone out there must show love for the loveless, right? Well, that was just the title. The actual lyrics are more about two people looking for love, wandering the streets, and constantly passing each other by. (A very goofy version of which became the basis for the music video.)
Not every song is about what you think it's about. But that's what I love about music. It's up to the listener to fill in what the song means to them. But sometimes, it's fun to pull the curtain back just a tiny bit and reveal something about the creative process.
