Track-By-Track: Bleach Blonde – Starving Artist

Onlangs publiceerde PropertyOfZack een track-by-track van Bleach Blonde’s laatste album Starving Artist, dat een aantal weken terug is uitgebracht via Rise Records. Als jij benieuwd bent naar het verhaal achter elk nummer, moet je snel hieronder kijken.

Miss Messenger 
With the opening track on the album, we wanted to start with an attention getter.  It starts off with vocals and an ambient drum beat. This song really sets the tone for the over all emotion for the record, and  lyrically it addresses how the vicious cycle of one night stands can become meaningless. This song is in a minor key to help develop the plot of the message.

Is That What You Want?
This track was all about maintaining a consistent heartbeat throughout its entirety. The verses really stand out as the bass demands your attention. It’s then followed by a driving chorus that switches to a major key. The bridge accentuates the minor tonality of the song until it reaches the climax in the last Chorus. The lyrics touch on how hard it can be to love someone that isn’t in your life anymore.

Pillow Talk 
This song is the first to showcase our syncopated vocal approach during a chorus. We used a lot of jazz influences when developing the bridge and eventually turned it into a full climax before the last chorus, instead of making the chorus itself the climax of the song. It’s about how romantic relationships can be shallow, and how influences and temptations around you can destroy something that could have been truly special.

Working Title 
This is the first song on the album that slows down the tempo and overall vibe. We strived to keep the chorus powerful, and the verses clean and open. The song speaks about how you can be completely blindsided in an a relationship by your partner.

Headed West
This song is about wishing to escape the troubles of everyday life with your significant other. The daily grind of routines can begin to feel like being 6 feet under. Sonically, this song is probably the closest to our debut sound and features both driving lines, and dual riffing.

The Headlines 
Sometimes the body wants the one thing your mind doesn’t need. Never-the-less, you want it anyway and that can get you into trouble. In this case, it’s hearing about your significant other and what they have been up to while you were away; and the repercussions you feel at a physical distance. Musically, this is the only song on the album that explores 3/4 time. The bridge exhibits heavy jazz/classical influences while the vocals overlap heavily throughout the second half. The chord progression and melody changes in the last chorus to bring the song to an unresolved ending.

Pen and Paper 
I wrote this song 2 years  before Bleach Blonde was a band. It was originally written for an old girlfriend that traveled over seas to go to school. It’s hard when distance is put in between, but you know deep down that it’s for the best. We wanted to preserve the raw emotion of the lyrics so we deliberately didn’t add a full band, and just kept the one electric guitar and vocals to symbolize the vulnerability of the situation.

Starving Artist 
The grass could always be greener once you get what you want and don’t want it anymore. It’s funny how that stays true in so many aspects of life. This song heavily exhibits “Call and Answer” between the vocals throughout its entirety. As our title track, the overall mood signifies the events that lead to the emotions we felt during every song we wrote.

The Old Number 7
This song is about the necessity of taking the time to heal after a dead end relationship. Realizing the amount of heartache that you went though allows an epiphany into which you can begin to believe the truth, not  just what will allow you to get through the day. As one of the shortest songs on the album, we wanted everything to be straight forward and “to the point”. Using a standard song structure, we decided to spice it up by diverting the attention to the instruments in the times of need.

Crystal Clear 
I wrote the lyrics to this song when I grew tired of hiding my feelings. So I really didn’t hold back and it’s the most emotional song (vocally) for me on the record. Instrumentally, it was one of those songs that seems to write itself. Our use of dual vocals allowed us to drive the album home as the whole band comes back in during the climax. The ending intentionally doesn’t resolve because it allows the album to leave behind some unfinished business in which we plan on carrying through onto the next album.