Confession - Story Behind The Song

I’m stuck in dilemmas between farewells and the sheets

I don’t mind your self-neglect because it’s all I preach

Shame-endorsed, don’t rip my sores to watch your burden bleed

Write me off your alibis and burn the memory

If you wanted evidence, well here’s your hint

I was never innocent

If you tend to miss me while I am sick,

I was never innocent

A double feature horror show, more violent, less obscene

Tell tale sign to sympathize if you confess these dreams

I’m stabbing out my brains for you, if that’s what you’ll believe

I’d rather be aborted than to never be conceived

This is either the third or fourth song that I remember writing. It’s probably 10 years old now. Based around a generic, three chord,  “drop d” riff that uses the “verse CHORUS verse” dynamic popularized by the Pixies/grunge. The riff during the outro was an impromptu idea that I wrote in 2 seconds when I felt that the song could use an extra kick at the end. Yes, an extra kick on top of the dynamic chorus boost and my insane inaudible distorted vocals. That is me screaming by the way. Could hardly speak for the next day due to me not having formal training on scream technique to keep my vocal chords as relaxed as possible.

The original lyrics are about a failed relationship I was in at the time when I wrote them. I was actually in high school when the original I wrote the original draft (circa 20211). I have since updated them in order to make them more relatable to other relationships I have had since producing the original lyrics. Luckily, it retains the original message of the song. The song portrays my self-inflicted sense of anger and aggression towards my own reckless behavior in the  relationships. The majority of the lines within the song confess my mistakes and express the understanding that I don’t deserve to be forgiven, for example, “write me off your alibis and burn the memory.” It also touches on the universal dilemma of staying in a relationship for the physical aspect of it - “I’m stuck in dilemmas between farewells and the sheets.” I later mention the desire to be in complete control of how I was perceived throughout the these relationship blunders, “I’d rather be aborted than to never be conceived.” A very similar concept to the late Kurt Cobain’s amended quote of Neil Young, commenting on the Sex Pistols, later used in terribly kitschy taste by Panic! At the Disco, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” 

The song finally touches on the fear of being exposed by those who were directly affected in those situations “shame endorsed, don’t rip my sores to watch your burden bleed.” The lyrics finally include a plea to those who might feel guilt relating to this situation, and perceive hope to have some sympathy even after I’m exposed for all of my wrongdoings, “Tell tale sign to sympathize if you confess these dreams.” Everyone has guilt filled secrets, right?

I will admit that the one line that does not directly fit into the angsty concept of the song is the “double feature horror show” line, which I added as a tribute to “The Rocky Horror Show.” I saw the play in Stratford, Canada and couldn’t get that darn “Science Fiction Double Feature” song out of my head. You know, the one that they play at the very beginning? It’s too damn catchy.

MUSIC VIDEO

“So, I’m thinking that if we set up this stage in the backyard, I’ll buy some instruments we can smash, and we can just make this crazy punk DIY thing.”

What started out as a “smashing instruments” concept soon became a “smashing instruments and multiple TVs” concept. We also had these awesome lights that were primarily owned by Tito, our resident Rok Block DJ. I did end up buying the lasers that were hanging from above.

We ended up buying some used cheap TVs and instruments off of Letgo. It’s amazing what people are willing to simply give away for next to nothing. The guitar was an entry level Ibanez, and the drums were some off-brand that I had never heard of (we covered up the kick drum logo with tape for the filming to avoid copyright issues). The funny thing about the drums is that the kit didn’t have a floor tom when I bought it, so we had to use the 13” rack tom as a suspended floor tom. It actually looked a lot more natural than expected.

Originally, the idea of just having a live performance and then smashing instruments at the end seemed fun enough, but I realized that it would copy the idea of probably hundreds of music videos that had come before, so we needed a way to spice it up a bit. The TV’s seemed like a feasible enough idea. Izaac from The Weird Sisters smashed a TV with a baseball bat in their music video for “Texas Toast” and it ended up looking awesome. Admittedly, he used a CRT TV (old box TV), and those are much harder to get your hands on, more expensive, and heavier. We also didn’t want anyone getting hurt and minimal clean up, so we stuck with cheap flatscreens. Prior to the shoot, I had actually taped up all of the screens so that there wasn’t any flying glass. Interestingly enough, we soon learned that the screens on these cheap TVs were made of plastic and not glass, so flying debris wasn’t nearly as much of a concern. Either way, we were all still glad to have taped up the screens either way because no one got hurt.

There was one exception to the “cheap, plastic screen tv” rule of thumb that we were trying to follow. It is pretty obvious when it is shown in the music video. There is a quick cut to a 50” Samsung plasma screen being dropped from the bridge (top of the stage) and it absolutely shatters. Needless to say, we didn’t get our hands on a 50” plasma screen to break it for a music video. It was my roommate’s TV in our house’s living room that I, Kirk, actually broke on St. Paddy’s day - a few weeks before filming.

The story isn’t even that great.

I was drunk - like everyone else on St Paddy’s day. At around midnight that night, my roommates and I decided to sing karaoke with one of those “karaoke at home” mics with the built in speakers. Between songs, I was talking about the LED light strips that were glued to the back of the TV. I bent over the top of the TV to look at the lights directly (we had the TV sitting really close to the ground), and when I tried to stand back up, I fell forward towards the TV. I was still holding the karaoke mic in my hand and shoved the back of the mic into the screen of the TV to quickly catch my fall. I didn’t think twice because I didn’t use much force, but it was then pointed out to me by my girlfriend, Karissa, that I had created a few squares of dead pixels where I had pushed against the TV with the microphone. For the sake of the story, I wish I had fallen through the TV or something far more interesting. Anyway, I passed out on the couch that night and woke up the next morning to the sound my roommate hauling in a new Samsung 65'“ 4k TV. I ended up paying him for the broken TV and he ended up being the one who smashed in the music video, so fair trade, right?

About a week before shooting, we changed routes again for the sake of safety. The original idea with the TVs was to have someone throw them over our heads while we were performing to create more of an edgy aesthetic. In writing, it sounds so over-the-top and stupid, but there was safe way to do it. The top of the stage was actually a bridge that Matt and I could essentially stand under while performing when the TVs were being tossed. It would look crazy and reckless, but the idea is that we would be standing under the platform where the TVs were being thrown so that there wasn’t much danger. While it made sense in theory, I was talked into doing the “smashing” takes separately as it would be easier to edit and no one wanted to toss the TVs over us out of fear that one could slip and debris could hit either Matt or I. Fair enough. There was also talk of using a green screen and gluing the performance takes and “TV throwing” takes together to make it look like the original idea, but the lighting would have been extremely inconsistent.

In order to get the lights looking “concert worthy,” we ended up using 5 fog machines. It is crazy how quickly fog dissipates outdoors compared to an indoor location. That sounds obvious, but when we filmed, there was no wind. We were hoping that the fog would linger, but our use of 5 fog machines was necessary due to the fact that the fog would seemingly disappear after 20 seconds. There were multiple times when we would use fog in the Rok Block garage and it would fill up the entire garage in an incredibly dense mist within one minute. Either way, luckily we were filming in 30-45 second increments in order to get the full effect of the lights.

Finally, it is no secret that music videos are just lip synch performances. We needed to be able to hear the song in order for the video to align with it. In order to do this, we took a P.A. from the main Rok Block garage, and played the song through the P.A. speakers and aimed the speakers directly at us. It. Was. Loud. My amp wasn’t plugged in, and Matt had muffled the drums with plenty of tape so that the volume wasn’t a concern. However, even with everything at a relatively low volume, the P.A. had to be close for full volume for us to be able to hear the intricacies of the song and for our voluntary crew to hear certain transitions and cues for the lights and fog. The irony of the situation is that Madison, TN is no stranger to gunshots and sirens, so no one really cared. Plus the neighbors’ kids were watching us do this in awe through their living room window. Everyone helping with the music video figured we were in the clear when Matt and I waved and them and they got super excited and were jumping out and down. Pretty funny. Needless to say, no cops were called for noise complaints.

After getting the takes we needed, smashing instruments, and hours upon hours of edits, we had ourselves the debut Titans of Siren official music video.