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dms-a-jem · 8 months

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Depeche Mode - Interview with Alan and Martin

International Musician and Recording World - Nov. 1984

Leaving their beginnings as wide-eyed Popsters behind them, Depeche Mode have become masters of the art of noise and the science of the studio. Adrian Deevoy had a rewarding chat with the Basildon-to-Berlin boys, Les Drennan took some great pictures.

Somewhere, off one of the corporate corridors in the labyrinthine complex we affectionately term Broadcasting House, a woman sits alone. Her job is to create emotion, tension and atmosphere. Her key to this process is a PPG system. Although this is heartbreakingly unromantic it is the ultimate argument for machines in the Machine vs Human debate. It’s also quite a nice little story.

Depeche Mode like this story.

“All the sounds for Life Of Earth,” declares Alan Wilder.

“All those little animals,” beams Martin Gore.

After four years Depeche Mode are pretty bogged off with being told that they make inhuman music. They quite rightly believe this accusation to be untrue. They might accept that their first two albums weren’t cataclysmic – catchy, melody blip-bops if you like your lager warm but nothing to telex home about – but they remain adamant that last year’s LP, Construction Time Again, this years singles People Are People and Master And Servant, and their latest album Some Great Reward are anything less than stirring. For in the last 18 months Depeche Mode have discovered, embraced and subsequently immersed themselves in sound. With the aid of producer Daniel Miller’s matchmaking Synclavier a strange love affair has developed between the band and sampled noise.

Alan Wilder and Martin Gore, the songwriters, seemed most smitten to a meeting between themselves, and a micro-Walkman was promptly arranged in a horrendously loud video wine bar where they both bawled unashamedly of their love for sound.

“I’ll take you through all the sounds on People Are People,” says Martin, eyes glazed, sparing the machine no blushes. “The bass drum at the beginning was just an acoustic bass drum sampled into a Synclavier then we added a piece of metal to that – just a sampled anvil type sound – to give it a slight click and make it sound a bit different. That’s the beauty of the Synclavier, you can edit sounds together to make what we call combination sounds. The main synth sound is the actual ‘synth’ sound on the Synclavier, that’s the one that plays the bass riff. But the bass sound is a combination sound too with part of it being an acoustic guitar plucked with a coin, which sounds very interesting when the two sounds are sequenced together.”

“There’s very little playing going on in People,” adds Alan, “virtually everything is sampled into the Synclavier. With the guitar sounds we altered them slightly once they were in the Synclavier because you sample in one note and then you can alter the length and dynamic of every note in the sequence for the guitar part so it will give expression, but it will still be completely in time. You can justify all the rhythms, you see, so that you can have articulation but it’s all in time.”

Getting back to the People Are People breakdown Martin unveils a short sampling anecdote: Love on a plane.

“I took a stereo Walkman when I was going on a plane from England to somewhere,” he begins. “I originally brought it along to take the takeoff but while the air hostess was doing her safety speech at the start of the flight I decided I’d tape that as well. But as she was telling everyone to ‘Check the instruction cards under your seat,’ the door flew open and all this air rushed in which made a real loud noise and everyone laughed. Anyway I looped the end of what she was saying and the laughter so it goes, ‘…tion cards ha ha ha ha …tion cards ha ha ha ha,’ which sounds funny but I used it in conjunction with a choir sound and it added a really nice texture to the bridge on People.”

“There’s a Synclavier harp sound in the verses,” contributes Alan, “and an ARP sequencer playing very fast in the chorus and there’s some Emulator sounds that we used for adding a few frills here and there.”

The three throaty clunks at the end of each chorus is in fact Martin’s throat.

“That was a combination sound,” says Alan. “First of all we sampled Martin going, ‘Unk Unk Unk,’ with his throat then we added a bell sound and a timpani to give it depth.”

“I felt a bit of a berk doing that,” admits Martin. But love’s a bit like that.

The vocal line, “It’s a lot… like life,” at the beginning of Master and Servant was yet more fodder for the Synclavier. As Alan explains.

“Firstly we got a lot of people singing the high, ‘It’s a lot,’ and then a low, ‘Like life.’ You don’t have to play one slower or faster than the other to get the octave either because you make a patch on the Synclavier keyboard for each part and then you play the parts in their natural pitches and both at the same speed which is very handy.”

The lead vocals on People Are People and Master and Servant (or M&S as us Depechies call it) on the 7” mixes at least, were pretty well the only sounds that weren’t sampled.

“The vocals,” explains Alan, “were recorded in a big room. That is the vocals were sent down through a PA into a big, live room so we could not only get a great big sound but so we could put effects on the vocal while it was being recorded and afterwards on the disk.

“Although we sample all the snare sounds,” he adds as an afterthought on live rooms, “we always record the initial sound in an ambient space. We like to vary the snare sounds a lot so we record all different acoustic snares in various rooms and we close mike them or mike them from a distance depending on the width of the sound that we require. Simmons pads? No, I don’t like them. After you’ve done all that fiddling around to get away from that factory preset sound you might as well have got a really good sound on the Synclavier. Simmons pads just remind me too much of that Howard Jones factory preset and Drumulator syndrome. Really boring ‘synth’ sounds. They’re just not interesting, they sort of scream ‘DX7!’ and ‘JP8!’ at you.”

The latest Depeche album boasts a myriad of sounds, less overtly metallic than the socialist sentiments that they reflected on Construction Time Again but just as fascinating. Love is all about contrasts.

“We don’t think that we overdid the metal-beating idea on Construction Time,” says Martin, “but we wanted to make this one less obviously metal sounds. We wanted a little more subtlety…”

So instead of belting skips they belted concrete.

“Yeah, on one of the tracks on the album, Blasphemous Rumours,” elaborates Alan, “we sampled some concrete being hit for what turned out to be the snare sound. All that entailed was us hitting a big lump of concrete with a sampling hammer…”

“…I’m sure they’re not actually called sampling hammers,” interjects Martin giggling.

“Anyway,” continues Alan, “the engineer / producer we use, Gareth Jones, has got this brilliant little recorder called a Stellavox which we use with two stereo mikes and it’s as good as any standard 30ips reel-to-real but this is very small and therefore very portable. So we just took the Stellavox out into the middle of this big, ambient space and miked up the ground and hit it with a big metal hammer. The sound was… like concrete being hit. I can’t really put it any other way.”

“Professional Walkmans are good for sampling too,” claims Martin. “Gareth has always got his out. On trains… at home. They’re good because they get a very impure sound that can often be really interesting. But if we want a very pure sound then we’ll take the thing, say a bit of scaffolding, into the studio and mike it up in the proper conditions and get a clean sound.”

If an equipment list had been included in the mentions on Some Great Reward, apart from pavements, buildings, bottles and old people being stapled together it would have incorporated a long list of toy instruments which Martin divulged as he became more intoxicated; by love of course.

“One morning me and Andy (Fletcher) went down to Hamleys, the toy shop in London, and bought as many toy instruments as we could find. Pianos, saxophones, xylophones and we took them all back to the studio and sampled them. One we used a lot was a Marina (?), a toy one, very strange, but after we’d sampled it, it was great. It sounded pretty terrible as a toy but when we took it down a couple of octaves it sounded really good.”

“People tend to think that if you’re using toy instruments then they have to sound whacky,” complains Alan, “but we put some to very good use because as soon as you sample them they take on a whole new quality and when you transpose them it puts them in a completely new context. Like the noises Martin was making with his throat, we only took those down a tone and it was unrecognisable as someone going, ‘Unk’, with their throat.”

But sampling, like love, isn’t all happiness and although Depeche have learnt to take the rough with the smooth, they found out the hard way. Alan breaks off in the middle of another ‘good combination sound’ story to tell how they were stitched up by a sussed, sampling percussionist.

“We were doing this combination with Martin doing his Indian voice combined with a bassoon type sound.”

“It was pretty ethnic,” says Martin launching into his Indian voice.

Alan ignores him. He has something on his mind that he’s not sure if he should tell us.

“I’m not sure I should tell you this,” he tells us, “but we got this percussionist in for the afternoon to sample his drums and the different techniques of playing them. We didn’t try to hide the fact that we were sampling him. We said, ‘We hope you don’t feel r*ped,’ and he agreed to be sampled literally just hitting one drum, once at a time. Anyway we sampled all his drums once, maybe twice. Now, the Musicians Union haven’t really caught up with sampling and this bloke had obviously contacted them when he got home because he gave us this bill for about 50 different sessions, plus sampling time plus a consultation fee. It was enormous and the stupid thing was that most of the sounds weren’t even as good as that (bangs two pint glasses together) and we only used about two for maybe two seconds each on a couple of songs.”

Another problem came when the band had to divide their recording time between Music Works in England and the 56-track, Solid State luxury of Hansa Mischraum in Berlin.

“There were all these builders in next door at Music Works,” moans Martin, “and we’d have the track running with us hitting skips and concrete and they’d be next door tearing a wall down and we couldn’t tell which was which. It was very confusing at times.”

Like love and marriage, sampling and timing tend to go together like the proverbial horse and jockey.

“Although it makes the whole process even longer, when you get into one you can’t really help but get into the other,” says Alan. “You can’t help, after you’ve been involved with sequencing for a while, noticing three millisecond or five millisecond discrepancies. So you end up time-shifting every sequence until it’s perfect. Then we got into consciously putting things slightly out of time. Like, for example, the choir sound on People again we used a combination sound of different choir sounds on different synths and then put them slightly out of time with each other. Like we took one sound from the Synclavier, one from the PPG and one was on the Emulator. Are you familiar with the Friendchip? It’s a time code reading clock that can monitor every single click output from all your drum machines and all your synths so when everything is going via the Friendchip you can adjust the feel by pulling something, say five or six milliseconds in one direction.

“The thing is so many things can’t play in perfect time anyway,” reveals Alan, “the Linn isn’t in time when it’s meant to be playing ‘drum machine’ perfect time without human error programmed in. It can go out by 20 milliseconds. We set an oscilloscope on several things to see how well they kept time. The one that came out best was the TR808 which only as a two millisecond shift. That’s better than the Synclavier. Rotten sounds though. But we actually ended up triggering stuff from the 808 just because it’s so tight within itself.”

“We always thought the 808 had a good feel,” chips in Martin before adding a bitchy, “even though Alan has a grade eight piano his playing is still incredibly out of time compared to the Synclavier sequencer… and even that’s out!”

All this and the Emulator II?

“Yeah,” admits Martin realising that his love has almost turned him into a technocrat, “the sampling time is about 17 seconds now, I think, and you can get more sampling across the keyboard, it gives better quality than the Fairlight and it only costs about seven grand which is a lot but it will be a big help to us live.”

And there’s a pianillow ballad, Somebody, to be sung love. Martin promises some. Kinda wonderful.

“We’re going to go for a completely human feel on that one. Just a piano played by Alan and Dave singing and Andy playing tapes on the Fostex X15. It’ll be very different.”

So the love for sound can take you backwards but what of the future?

“I don’t know,” confesses Martin, “the Synclavier can already go further than your imagination and they’re thinking of getting new software for that. Then there’s re-synthesis which might happen in a couple of years where you can take a sampled sound and change just tiny parts of it. It’s really impossible to say. Maybe we’ll just get the guitars out and make a Rock ’n’ Roll album. Who knows?”

…and somewhere, within the folds of Auntie Beeb’s ageing skin, a woman sits alone wrestling with a similar emotional predicament. Is she really in love with her PPG system is has it been David Attenborough all along?

Adrian Deevoy, November 1984 (some of the text is hard to read so transcribed to the best of my ability. Apologies for any typos)

#depeche mode #alan wilder #martin gore #my passionate little synth nerds🤓

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quixoticall · 8 months

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This Could Get Ugly Track 4: The End of the Beginning

Summary: It's 1983 and The Downsides need another lead singer and you just happen to need a band--it's a perfect match. The only issue? You have to pretend to be in a relationship with your bandmate, Steve Harrington, but you can't help but be drawn to the band's broody guitar player.

pairing: s.h. x fem!reader, e.m. x fem!reader, j.b. x n.w.,

warnings: ANGST, drinking, drug use, the reader faces the consequences of her actions and faces some hate from Robin, era-normalizes homophobia, no use of YN, wet dreams and reader being horny on main, allusions to a bi!reader, kinda voyerism?

A/N: First of all, I wanted to express all my gratitude for the love everyone has shown me and my work! It feels so wonderful to know that others are enjoying reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it. This chapter was so challenging but also really rewarding. Initially, this was going to be much longer and it would cover the entire rest of the tour, but I didn’t want the pacing to feel rushed so I split this into two parts so we can also delve a little deeper into the rest of the tour dates. Also, I love circa Season 3 Robin who calls people out on their shit.

wc: 5.9K

MASTERLIST🎸

PLAY PREVIOUS TRACK 🎵

April 11th, 1984 Cincinnati Ohio

“Hey! Hey!” You hear calls of your name from deep in the corners of the chaos that is backstage before a show. You’re too busy fighting to secure the buckle on your stupidly impractical heels to look up and instead, you listen as the voice calling your name gets closer and closer until it takes the form of the heavy pair of lace-up boots that appear in front of you. Your gaze follows the trail up the boots to the attached legs, torso, chest, and finally to the head of wild curls belonging to one Eddie Munson. “Yes?” You say primly as if this is your first time hearing him. He rolls his eyes in response, but the gesture is more teasing than anything.

“I was thinking that maybe we don’t even do a bridge in ‘Runaway with Me’. What if, instead we do one final chorus with a larger buildup?” You halt mid-shoe-struggle to glance up at him and consider his idea. “That could work,” you say, straightening out to eye level, giving yourself a break from your crouched position.

“We could build a crescendo, maybe bring in some horns like Robin’s always talking about,” you offer.

He nods excitedly, “Yeah, some horns would be sweet! We could also do some heavier synth.”

As he’s talking, he kneels and gently begins to secure the strap of your shoes for you. This gesture and others like them have recently begun to spring from the guitarist. The two of you have naturally been spending more and more time together writing and through this time spent together you’ve come to realize that Eddie is kind below all that bravado and snark. It’s a kindness you recognize, one that’s been bubbling below the surface waiting for someone to lure it out by working past his walls. As it would turn out, spending a few nights a week writing did the trick and after nearly a month, the two of you were approaching friendship.

“Thanks,” you smile, once he’s secured both shoes, “I was struggling there.”

He gives you one of those full-body shrugs you’ve come to associate with him lately and says, “It’s nothin’. Didn’t want you wrinkling your pretty dress.”

You brush off his flirtatious words as just an attempt to get under your skin. He’s still Eddie, after all.

“Maybe we should finish the song tonight, then,” you suggest, fingers smoothing out your skirt instinctively.

“And miss the afterparty? No chance. Argyle says that the club we’re going to downtown has go-go dancers.”

“Oh, right, the afterparty. I forgot,” you exclaim, unconvincingly.

“That’s bullshit,” Eddie deadpans, “you just don’t want to go.”

The other thing you’ve learned about Eddie these past few weeks is that he’s weirdly perceptive.

“I hate those parties,” you whine as the two of you amble towards the front of the stage, “I’m stuck having people gawking at me while the rest of you are off having fun.”

“Well, that’s an easy fix, why don’t you ditch the gawkers tonight and you and I can get up to some shenanigans?”

“Oh yeah?” you challenge with a raise of your eyebrow, “I don’t see how watching groupies throw themselves at you is any different than watching them throw themselves at Steve.”

“Where are these groupies that you speak of, because I promise you no one is throwing themselves at me,” he guffaws at the mere thought.

You roll your eyes, “I see you taking a different girl home every night and I wouldn’t want to mess with your batting average. Besides, people will see me with you instead of Steve and they’ll start talking.” “Listen, I appreciate your concern, but my batting average is rookie-level, at best,” he fiddles with the strap on his guitar excessively before swinging it over his shoulders, “and as far as rumors go, not likely. No one in their right mind would think anyone, much less you would choose me over Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington.”

You roll your eyes at his self-deprecation. “That’s not a nice thing to say about yourself, Eddie. Also, you know Steve hates when you call him that.”

He smirks in response, “That’s exactly why I do it, princess. So, what do you say? If you come to the afterparty and we have a good time, we skip the next writing session and if you find it absolutely abhorrent, we’ll… skip the afterparty in St. Louis and buckle down to write. Deal?” *** You end up taking Eddie’s deal if anything, because you don’t want to alienate the closest thing you have to a friend right now.

Ever since Jonathan found out about his brother’s successful operation, he’s been making up for lost time, partying and drinking with Argyle every single night. Nancy’s been preoccupied with trailing behind them and making sure they don’t end up waking up in a hotel lobby fountain like they did back in D.C..

Steve, on the other hand, has withdrawn from you since Atlanta, and while he acts the part of doting boyfriend in front of the crowds and pleasant friend in front of the rest of the band, the connecting door between your hotel rooms has remained resoundingly locked. Naturally, Robin had been avoiding you too.

This is how you ended up sitting next to Eddie Munson at a seedy club somewhere in downtown Cincinnati watching girls dance in cages and listening to him argue with the bartender about which regional hot dog was the best.

From across the room, Nancy catches your eye and flashes a sheepish smile before Jonathan drags her to another corner of the room, drink in hand. Occupying a separate corner, you spot Steve and Argyle in a cloud of women and smoke downing what appears to be their thousandth shot as onlookers cheer on.

You wish it was that easy for you.

“What do you wish was that easy?” Eddie turns suddenly, angling his entire body your way.

You swallow down the embarrassment of having accidentally voiced your thoughts, if only because Eddie’s smirking at you like he knows you’ve been caught.

“You know, walking into a room and not having to worry about doing the wrong thing and immediately making everyone hate you. I wish that was easier.”

He laughs at this, a banging-on-the-table type of ordeal, and you withdraw into yourself at the flash of the callousness you had previously associated with him.

“Sorry, sorry,” he waves, “It’s just that, you could probably spit in everyone’s face when you walk into a room while insulting their mothers and they would still love you. How could anyone not? You’ve got that thing.”

“That thing?”

“Yeah, like,” he gesticulates his arms wildly as if he could catch the words he was looking for between his fingers, “magnetism? But also endearing which is extra annoying. It shines off you, almost? Like…if the rest of the world is silver, you’re this big chunk of gold.”

He ducks his head suddenly, embarrassed and his words mean so much you nearly do the same.

“Thanks, Eddie,” you say instead, and because it is Eddie, you have to add, “although, no one’s ever called me a ‘big chunk’ of anything.”

“Yeah well, someone’s got to keep you humble, right?”

You roll your eyes but even that doesn’t wipe away your smile, in fact, it only grows.

***

ROBIN: Of course, I remember that night! I spent the entire time comforting my best friend while he watched those two make eyes at each other.

It always blew my mind what she could get away with that the rest of us couldn’t. It had only been a month since she rejected Steve on the basis of wanting to keep things professional and here, she was, practically attached at the hip to Eddie—the one guy who hurt Steve the most to see her with—like it’s nothing and the rest of us have to pay the consequence! How was that fair?

***

” So, what do you say? St. Louis after party?” Eddie quips an eyebrow as the two of you stumble down the hallway of your Ohio hotel room, many hours and drinks later.

“I don’t think so, Munson,” you say, far too resolutely for someone who is clinging to the wall.

“What? I thought you had fun! That was fun! Didn’t you have fun?”

His large brown eyes turn a bit desperate at his question. Truthfully, the night was good—not necessarily the exciting endless nights of your teenage years on the Strip—but Eddie did put effort into making it an enjoyable night for you. He kept the drinks flowing and brought you the best of Argyle’s stash of magic pills. He even got into one of the Go-Go cages after losing a drinking game and gave a truthfully hilarious performance. He was so focused on getting off the hook for writing in St. Louis that he ignored every groupie that tried to approach.

Still, you could not shake the hollowness in your heart or the weight of everyone’s attention.

Stopping at your hotel room door (at least you think it is, you’re not quite sure) you turn to put a hand on his shoulder, “Thank you, for working so hard to give me a good night, I appreciate it, but we’re writing in St. Louis. We have to, we’re already behind.”

Placated by this, Eddie nods, smiling, before reaching up to grasp your wrist lightly, the one that’s resting on his shoulder.

“Well, as long as you had some fun—”

The ding of the elevator drowns out the rest of what he was going to say and the two of you jump apart in time to catch a glimpse of a very pissed-off Robin propping up a very out-of-it Steve. Eddie rushes forward, reaching for Steve’s other side, but before he can help her, Robin says, icily and resolutely, “Don’t. You’ve done enough,” causing Eddie to flinch back.

This uncharacteristic snap from Robin has left the two of you stunned, standing in place and far too drunk to know what to do so you both watch, unmoving as Robin struggles comically to get Steve down the hallway to the door next to yours.

Steve, for his part, is glassy-eyed and completely unhelpful to Robin, in fact, you’re certain he’s leaning his entire weight on her. When he makes eye contact, you smile, awkwardly and he turns completely away from your gesture.

“Shit, Steve, where’s your key?” Robin asks, patting away at his pocket in a way only intimate friends could do.

Steve shrugs dismissively in response, “Lost it,” he slurred.

His voice spurs you into action, “Here,” you gesture to Robin, “I can let you in through the inside door.”

The brass player grimaces in response, and you can see her mouth get ready to tell you to fuck off but Steve’s weight on her slight frame gets the best of her, and huffs in forced acceptance, “Fine, whatever.”

You hold the door as the two of them stumble in, a gangly, uncoordinated four-legged monster.

Eddie lingers on the other side of the doorway, Robin’s glare enough to stave him off.

The two of you share a smile, and it looks like he wants to say something but a crash in your room demands your attention.

“Thanks for the night out, Eddie,” you say partially because you must and partially because you don’t recognize the look in his eyes, “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

You puncture your question with a slight tilt of your head, gesturing towards the cacophony inside.

He nods, understandingly, gulping down his words, and instead offers, “Yeah, sounds good, see you tomorrow.”

You shut the door, ready to accept whatever destruction Steve has inflicted in retaliation, you’re certain, for his broken heart. You deserved it, after all. Any other guy (and in fact, every other guy you had been with before) would’ve probably told you off angrily by now, and, as nice as Steve seemed, it was only a matter of time before he did too.

To your surprise, he is at your vanity, fumbling about with your various pots and compacts and bottles of perfume.

Robin is trying to pull him away, albeit feebly.

“Stop it, Rob,” Steve whines, slapping her grasp away, “I miss the smell.”

***

ROBIN: Pathetic. It was pathetic.

***

STEVE: No, sorry, I don’t remember that happening.

***

Robin realizes now that she is in no place to deny your offer of help so between the two of you you manage to get Steve undressed and put to bed. The already Herculean task is made even more difficult by Robin’s refusal to acknowledge you in any capacity, but it gets done.

“You know, I don’t mean to hurt him,” you mutter, pulling the duvet over Steve’s shoulders.

“Right,” Robin responds, not even looking up, “guess it’s just another one of those things you’re just naturally good at, huh?”

You sigh, frustrated. Maybe it’s the alcohol still circling through your veins, maybe it’s the need to appeal to Robin, whom you had previously had a trouble-free relationship with, but you start to talk.

“Listen, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to be with Steve…it’s that I don’t know how.”

She turns wide-eyed to you now, “You don’t know how to have sex? They have books for that, you know.”

“No, no it’s not that,” you say, and then quieter, after making sure Steve was still passed out in his nest of pillows, “I’ve had sex before. Plenty of sex, with other people—”

“Sure, that sounds super convincing.”

“I’ve just never been in a relationship before. I don��t know how and I’m not sure if I’d be very good at it.” You divert your gaze now from Robin, blushing at your revelation.

“What do you mean? What about Jason Carver? You dated for like six months.”

You fiddle with the blanket bunched at the corner of the bed.

“No, we didn’t. Those were just lies spread by Starcourt to sell more records. I didn’t date any of those assholes. It was all set up.”

Robin lowers down to sit on the edge of the bed opposite you, by Steve’s feet.

“So, what? Everyone needs a first. Is Steve not worth trying for?”

“Of course, he is, Robin! But other people are relying on us not fucking this up and I already know that I will.”

“So, that’s it then? You’re too scared to try just because it doesn’t come easy?”

You pluck angrily at a loose thread and mutter, “You just don’t get it.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I don’t. I have to spend my entire life hiding who I love from the world and here you are, getting the opportunity to love someone—and not just anyone but, like, one of the best guys in the world—and have that love be celebrated by other people and instead of choosing to at least try to make it real, you’re sticking to what’s fake because that’s all you know.”

Words block your throat, and your eyes sting with unshed tears.

“I’m gonna go now,” you exhale, shakily before dashing out of the door into your own room. You wait before your certain Robin has left before letting your tears flow.

***

ROBIN: What I said was totally harsh, but I don’t regret it. She needed to hear it.

***

April 13th, 1984, St. Louis Missouri

“So, what’s going on with you and Harrington?”

Eddie wastes no time in asking as he is ushered into your current hotel room.

“What do you mean?” you ask, trying your hardest to sound convincingly confused.

With his guitar case, he gestures towards the door that connects your room to Steve’s, “Every time I come over now, that door is closed.”

You shrug in response, “Dunno. He probably got bored of me.”

Eddie scoffs, unconvinced as he begins to settle on your small couch for a night of writing, “I doubt that Harrington could ever be tired of you.”

You know what he wants to hear—what’ll get him off your back.

“Well… maybe I got bored of him.”

***

STEVE: What do I remember about St. Louis? Well, for one, the hotel walls were really thin.

***

Eddie didn’t ask you about Steve after that, instead, he diverted his attention entirely to showing you all that he had written between Cincinnati and St. Louis. It was a lot. Way more than what you were used to from him. Something had changed recently with him, a crazy wave of creativity that had kicked his songwriting into overdrive. The interesting thing about it was the consistent romantic undertone in most of his songs. It made you curious about what one-night stand could’ve possibly bewitched him to the point where he was writing verses upon verses about her. You try not to think about Eddie’s possible muse too much and try to focus on being grateful for her instead.

The two of you sit on your too-small couch, bodies flush against one another at nearly every point. You lean closer to the guitarist and cheekily pluck the pen out of his hand and scribble some lyrics in his notebook.

“How am I supposed to decipher any of that chicken scratch?” he teases.

Your head snaps up from the page, with the full intention to tell him off but you’re awestruck by your proximity. You’re close enough to see the scar next to his right eye and the flecks of gold in his quickly widening pupils. That partnered with his musky scent of fir trees and tobacco leaves you gaping at him like a fish. Eddie Munson is pretty, you notice. Very much so. Sure, you weren’t so blinded by his arrogance and unpleasantness to not realize he was attractive, but before you had always seen him as hot. He was a guitar player, after all. But now, up close, knowing him, you see the softness of his face and the warmth of his eyes and it’s all quite disarming.

Realizing you had been staring for way more than could be considered appropriate, you snap backward into the farthest corner of the tiny couch putting a sliver of space between the two of you.

“My handwriting is perfectly fine,” you argue, weakly.

And just like that, the moment slips through your fingers and it’s just you and Eddie again, writing songs and teasing each other like nothing happened.

Three hours later, you are finally happy enough with the progress that was made to release Eddie back into the wild. You escort him to the door and the two of you linger in the threshold. His fingers drum against his guitar case, restlessly and he seems like he’s going to say something.

After an unusually awkward moment of silence between the two of you, you decide to move things along.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsals?” you offer, rolling your ankle against the stiff, carpet floor.

In response, Eddie gulps and nods sharply, but doesn’t quite turn to walk away.

Instead, he pulls lightly at one of his curls, like you see him sometimes do while he’s deep in thought, and says something that takes you completely by surprise, “I like writing with you, you know?”

He starts walking backwards, now, eyes still on you but retreating quickly down the hall.

“I like writing with you too,” you respond, softly, too softly, but by the ear-splitting grin on Eddie’s face, you’re certain he heard.

***

You’re not sure how it started. Maybe it was because your nerves at being around Steve for the first time properly since Cinci had made you extra fidgety or maybe it was the feeling of Eddie’s heavy stare tracing the thin straps of your top that had sent a bolt of energy through you, (or maybe it was the hit you’d taken from Argyle’s stash) but you had too much energy to burn at rehearsal. You started dancing a little more than usual on stage—nothing complicated, just a little two-step here and there, maybe a twirl but, by the third song, you had noticed that Steve was beginning to mimic your movements so that the two of you moved together on stage. After that, you played around with it, a little more, not taking it too seriously, but treating it like a game of Simon Says while also trying to guess each other’s next move.

When the song ends, the two of you are a bit more out of breath than normal, but you’re smiling just the same.

“Woah, did you two plan that?” Argyle asks, in awe.

“No,” he chuckles out, “just messing around, I guess.”

“Well, whatever you were doing you should try it on stage tomorrow night, it was cute,” Nancy says decidedly from behind her keyboard.

Sheepish looks are exchanged between you and Steve, and you shrug at him.

“Sure, why not?”

***

ROBIN: There was a lot about the band that was fake, but none of that ever bled into how we were on stage. Even when things were the most difficult between us—I’m talking about when some of us couldn’t even look at each other—all that went away when we were on stage. Especially with our two lead singers. During that first tour, when Steve had confessed his feelings and she left him totally heartbroken, that didn’t affect their chemistry at all.

I remember that day in St. Louis, during rehearsal, they were messing around together, doing this silly little dance during All About You and it turns into this whole choreographed bit. We didn’t have a fancy set production or even a coordinator back then, so all the little dances they did, that was all them.

People went crazy for them, and it became a thing that people were expecting us to do.

EDDIE: Listen, I think we can both admit I was never the frontman type like Harrington—I’m too hard to swallow and my singing voice ain’t all that, plus all that attention would make me go nuts—but seeing the two of them, up there, dancing, and smiling and singing to each other like there was no one else in the room? Can’t say that was easy for me, no.

STEVE: You know, part of me started to hate performing? Well, maybe not hate, but it was difficult. The crowd would go crazy when we interacted, and the more we danced with each other, the more we shared a mic or got really close, the more the crowd cheered. So, we did those things a lot throughout the shows. And sometimes, when she would reach out and touch my face or look at me with those eyes, well, it felt real almost like we were the only two people in the room and we weren’t pretending, we were just being. And then we would get off stage and go back to being strangers.

It’s the almost having something that always hurts the most.

***

“Hey, where are you going?”

The show is over, and the crowds are long gone, and the venue is deserted. It’s late but, for most of the band, the night is just beginning. While the rest were getting ready for another night out, you were gearing up for a long night of songwriting with Eddie and were just about ready to find him and head to the hotel when he breezes by, arm wrapped around some unknown girl, without as much as a glance in your direction.

Your question catches his attention, and he stops in his tracks but doesn’t turn around.

“Eddie,” you continue, “I thought we agreed we were going to write tonight.”

“Sorry, change of plans,” he tosses over his shoulder and then continues on without further explanation.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘change of plans’? We made a deal,” you charge behind him.

“Yeah, well, that was before Arabella told me about this bar downtown that—”

You don’t even let him finish.

“No offense, but I don’t give a shit about who Arabella is or what she told you, we have a deadline to meet!”

Eddie stops at this and his date, who you now realize is probably the Arabella he was referring to, takes the moment to fully glare at you. You shoot her a half-hearted shrug in place of an apology.

For his part, Eddie is regarding you like he’s thinking over a math problem or trying to figure out a particularly tricky chord progression. His expression changes, however, as soon as he spots the rest of the band approaching behind you.

“Raincheck?” He offers dismissably.

You cross your arms and scoff. Truly, who the hell did he think he was?

“Go fuck yourself, Eddie.”

You give him no chance to respond before you turn around and stalk off in the opposite direction, not caring that the exit is in the other direction.

You walk past the others as you do and reactions to your outburst range from full guffaws (Argyle, Jonathan) to awkward grimaces (Nancy) to something right in between (Robin). Steve, on the other hand, looks almost angry and while you’re not sure who that anger is directed at—you have too much of your own to worry about it.

“Hey! Don’t be that way, we can write another night, I promise!” You hear Eddie calling out behind you, and suddenly this has become a full-on scene, but you keep walking.

He calls out for you again, this time you pick up on the light desperation coloring his voice but again, you don’t dare turn around. He calls out your name one last time and this time you do respond—by flipping him off.

***

ARABELLA CHEN (FORMER GROUPIE): I remember that! She was kind of a bitch, to be frank. You know, back then I tried not to hang around girls too much, they were always so much drama.

EDDIE: Why did I blow her off? Hm, not sure. I wasn’t doing any drugs back then so I can’t blame it on that. You know what? It was probably because I was...God, what’s the phrase? Oh, right. A jealous immature asshole.

***

You head to the hotel on your own that night, feeling annoyed and only a little bit lonely. You try to do some writing, but you're so wound up that it's no use, so you end up calling it a night early.

You are too wound up to even sleep and you spend the majority of the night falling asleep only to stir awake at the last minute, your energy too high to let you rest. You’re no longer angry and annoyed, though, mostly you're hungry.

You commiserate over the fact that Robin usually was your late-night snack supplier but obviously, she was no longer willing. And because Hopper had blown up at Eddie and Argyle for ordering $650 worth of room service in Nashville after getting a wicked case of the munchies which left you no choice by to shop the hotel vending machines to possible quiet your hunger.

The sad, barely-stocked machines were nestled at the end of the hall in a small separate room that also housed the ice machine You're scanning the rows of candy bars and chip bags trying to find something that was from this decade when the aggressive shrill of the elevator pulls your attention.

There's a cacophony of clumsy noises coming from the elevator. From where you're standing, you can see the occupants stumbling out, a flurried mess of limbs and hair. Eddie and the girl he had had on his arm. The one who had told him about the awesome bar or whatever. Arabella. It was a stupid name, truly. Like a fancy dog or a part of the royal family.

Likely, they can't see you from their spot, or maybe they could but they weren't so preoccupied trying to get Arabella's tongue all the way down Eddie's throat that they didn't. You stayed frozen in place as you watched them stumble to his room, fingers interwoven through hair and hands wandering underneath fabric. Eventually, Eddie hoisted her up and she wrapped her long, golden legs around his torso and you caught a glimpse of her nearly non-existent panties.

Finally, they clumsily stumbled into his room and you were able to escape from your hiding spot, snacks fully forgotten.

You tried to go to bed after that, hoping that the anger and annoyance you had felt earlier in the night had finally dissipated. And while those feelings had quieted, something else equally white-hot through the night you come to realize when after startling awake for the thousandth time you recall fragments of your dream. First, you remember Eddie, and then the girl he was with Arabella. And then you remember the rest. Hot, bare, skin-on-skin, and open-mouth kisses flood your memory, and you can't help but blush. You had been having a dirty dream about your bandmate. A bandmate that you had just had a very public fight with and to top it all off the girl that he chose to spend the night with over you also made a guest appearance in said dirty dream.

Yeah, that was fucked.

You sit up, blankets pulling around your waist and try to blink away the shame and rub the sleep out of your eyes.

It's not a big deal you tell yourself. Everyone has dirty dreams they're not proud of every once in a while. So, what if yours was about Eddie? It was probably an indication that you hadn't gotten any action in a really, really, long. Given your contractually obligated fake relationship, was that truly a surprise?

Your halfhearted attempts to go back to sleep are only met with visions of dark hair and long, ringed fingers exploring supple, rounded flesh.

When you finally decide it's no use, you get to writing instead.

***

The next day during sound check, you avoid Eddie. Partially because you’re still annoyed at him for blowing you off, and partially because the dream you had about him was still far too fresh in your mind you couldn’t count on yourself not to blush in his presence. He was not getting the message though, because he seemed to trail behind you the entire time. Not too close where it was obvious to the others, but close enough that you, the person who was actively trying to avoid him, noticed.

Eventually, you have no choice but to acknowledge him when he all but corners you as you’re leaving the restroom.

“Did you get the…things?” he asks lamely.

“What thing?” you ask, trying to gently push past him.

He looks nervous now, and a bit ashamed, but almost in a cute way like a chastised puppy.

“You, know, the things—” you continue to stare at him, blankly and he has no choice but to elaborate— “the flower things.”

Oh. That was him?

“Oh,” you respond, “That was you?”

It his turn to look befuddled now, bordering on mortified, “Who else could they have been from?”

“I don’t know,” you respond nonchalantly, “I kind of get flowers all the time.”

That was true. Back when you were going on fake dates for photo opps with every warm male body at Starcourt, you were receiving so many thank-you bouquets and charcuterie baskets you had run out of flat surfaces to put them on.

So, this morning when there had been a loud knock at your door, you had been more concerned about telling off whoever decided it was okay to bang on your door in the early hours of the morning (11 AM) than figuring out who sent the obnoxiously large bouquet that had been waiting for you when you opened the door.

“Plus, there was no note,” you add with a shrug.

“Well, of course, there was no note, the depth of my remorse and shame regarding my behavior last night is far too vast to fit onto a measly 3x5 piece of paper. I wanted to apologize in person, like a man.”

***

EDDIE: It was my first time getting someone flowers. I didn’t realize there was a note you had to write.

***

You stare at him, arms crossed and expectingly.

“I’m sorry I blew you off last night to go to a bar downtown with a mechanical bull and I am even more sorry about how much of a dick I was about it. Even though the mechanical bull was a lot of fun, it would’ve been even more fun if you were there. If it’s any consolation, I got knocked off the bull almost immediately. It was humiliating. I deserved it though after the way I spoke to you and if you’d like me, I’d like to make it up to you tonight. What do you say? I’ll buy you a bottle of that wine you like and we’ll have a hot and heavy writing sesh.”

It's at this point that you realize how close the two of you were. Eddie had you essentially caged against the wall, clearly trying to prevent you from slipping past him like you had all afternoon. The proximity along with hearing Eddie say “hot and heavy” immediately brought back memories that you were trying to avoid.

“Maybe,” you croak, as you duck underneath his arm and scurry around him, trying to put as much distance between yourself and the heat of his body. “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

***

EDDIE: She didn’t get back to me that day. Or the three days after that. She avoided me like the plague, actually. I had thought that the flowers and the heartfelt apology would’ve helped smooth things over a little but I guess I hadn’t realized how much I hurt her feelings.

Of course, I was kicking myself. I was sure that I had wrecked my chances. I told myself it was my fault for ever believing that I could ever have a chance with someone like her. I was ready to accept that it was all over before it ever even began.

And then the strangest thing happened.

***

April 20th, 1984, Pontiac, Missouri

It wasn’t like you were an overly sexual creature. Sure, you enjoyed sex, and you had sex a healthy amount of time, but you had never felt like if you didn’t have sex you would die. Until now.

Maybe it was all the time on the road that was getting to you. Maybe this was some weird psychological thing and your brain associated hotel linens with sexy rendezvous. Maybe being in a (fake) romantic relationship made you crave sexual intimacy as well. Whatever the reason was, you could not shake this growing hunger that burned in the pit of your stomach, and it was starting to affect you outside of just messing with your sleep.

Not only were the dreams happening more often now, but they were no longer just about Eddie. You had them about former flings, and old crushes, Steve was starting to become a frequent player. You think you may have had one about Nancy once, which was very surprising but not unwelcome.

You weren’t proud to admit it, but you saw Steve’s treasure trail once and had to spend 20 minutes in the bathroom splashing water on your face. Something very similar happened when Eddie wore a muscle tank to rehearsal.

You had tried handling the issue yourself and while you were able to get the job done, it always left you wanting more.

If you kept having dreams like these, you were eventually going to run out of bandmates you could look in the eye without blushing.

It wasn’t like you could hook up with someone random either. Outside of the obvious reason, it was too much of a risk for your relationship with Steve, both the fake one and the very tender one you had behind the scenes. Steve was the obvious choice to help resolve your issue because of the mutual attraction but you are certain if the two of you started having sex, no matter how casual you could claim it would be, feelings would start to develop sooner rather than later. He was too easy to like for that not to be the case.

You could’ve just ignored it and hoped it would go away, really, you could’ve. In fact, that would’ve been the sensible thing to do. Hell, you could’ve discreetly found a shop to purchase a vibrator and maybe this whole thing would’ve been resolved. But no, instead, you end up in front of Eddie Munson’s hotel door somewhere in Missouri about to set off a chain of events that was going to impact you for the rest of your life.

PLAY NEXT TRACK🎤

Taglist:

@rexorangecouny , @persophonekarter @mystargirl-interlude @brinleighsstuff @thegaysaretired @nothing2-see @harrysvirgogf @Prior-antidote @stardustofyesterday

#steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x reader #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #steve harrington #stranger things x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x you #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things x you #stranger things imagine #jonathan byers #eddie munson x yn #steve harrington x yn #steve harrington imagine #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x f!reader #steve harrington x f!reader

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ghostradiodylan · 9 months

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I'm on a four hour car drive, singing at the top of my lungs (terribly, I'm so congested right now, not gonna stop me though lol), and having quarry brainrot. Who among the counselors do you think can sing well and who do you think can play an instrument?

I looove this question and I have to admit I haven’t thought about it that much so this is gonna be kind of off the cuff, instinctive stuff and I’m sure I’ll refine my opinions if others chime in (please!).

It’s kind of weird we never get any campfire singalong action in the game when there’s a guitar in Chris’s bedroom and he mentions Kumbaya, but maybe they’re tired of that from camp by the time the plot line picks up.

Miles obviously is a musician and Dylan’s the music guy so I’d imagine he’s musically inclined in some way. I’ve seen headcanons that he plays guitar and I could see that but I lean more toward thinking he would have taken piano lessons when he was younger and moved on to keyboard and adding on techie stuff like the Mellotron and Moog synth. I think he loves dials and buttons and weird sounds and he can sing but he’d rather fuck around in the noise. Any instrument he plays is gonna get a bit sad if he loses his hand but maybe he’d get more into sampling and remixing and looping computer generated beats as a result.

I think it would be funny if Jacob had a surprisingly angelic singing voice that was completely uncoached and no one ever expected out of him, sort of like Finn from Glee (RIP) but less auto-tuned. I think he’d be an acoustic guitar guy for sure just for the romance of it. Anyway, here’s “Wonderwall.”

Actual footage of Jacob serenading Emma, feat Abi.

Kaitlyn does not strike me as particularly musical though I headcanon that she and Jacob slay karaoke together. She just kind of shouts into the mic like a 90s riot grrl and sings Alanis or Joan Jett and kills.

Abi is so high school marching band nerd coded to me and I feel like she’s a total flute/piccolo girlie or else clarinet/oboe. Or maybe she plays violin in the school orchestra. Something sweet. She’s good but too nervous to perform or audition in front of people very much so it’s just a hobby she shares with people she trusts.

Emma I think would have a perfectly nice mid range singing voice that she’d wish was better. She probably started her influencer career recording Taylor Swift covers for YouTube but she’s a much better actress and dancer than she is a singer. Not quite triple threat material but she believes in herself so she’s trying.

Ryan has such a unique voice that I can’t decide if he definitely can sing or if he’s practically tone deaf. I kind of lean toward the latter. I imagine he hates his singing voice and rarely sings even for fun but if Dylan catches him singing or humming he’s like smitten times one million about it. I could see Ryan playing drums though, I’d imagine he has a good sense of rhythm.

Max, on the other hand, cannot carry a tune but sings ALL THE TIME anyway. And Laura cringes but finds it endearing all the same. He probably plays the ukulele. He just seems like the type.

Laura was a choir kid for sure and probably got solos in school plays and Max was accompanying her on ukulele and playing unnamed roles or else he was painting backdrops or something. We know Siobahn can sing and I feel like that would carry through with Laura for sure. I imagine them doing elaborate musical routines together on car rides even with their vastly different musical abilities.

Nick reminds me of a bassist I know who is maybe the weirdest human being alive. So that’s where I see him. He can sing a little but it’s definitely a backing vocals voice. I feel like he’d be in a stoner jam band just fucking around, playing the same song for an hour while both the band and audience are too high to know the difference.

Chris Hackett obviously plays guitar and Travis accompanies him on harmonica. Bobby plays blowing air over the lip of a jug and also cowbell.

I LOVE THIS ASK EVERYONE TELL ME THOUGHTS!

#the quarry #dylan lenivy #ryan erzahler #kaitlyn ka #jacob custos #abi blyg #emma mountebank #max brinly #nick furcillo #laura kearney #chris hackett #travis hackett #Nick Furcillo bullying hours #Bobby Hackett #ilu torch thanks for the ask #beautiful asks from beautiful people #miles Robbins #siobhan williams

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cannibalovers · 8 months

Text

Hannibal song of the day: song no. 8

a bit about the song:

"Parasite"(released in 2010) is a song by How To Destroy Angels(HTDA), a music project by Trent Reznor(NIN) featuring his wife, Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, Atticus Ross and Rob Sheridan. His wife has taken over his usual lead vocalist position, with him taking on the background vocals, although in this song, both of them sing all the lines are the same time (although Mariqueen's voice is still quite dominant). The song fits the experimental, eletronica and post-industrial genres, beginning with a building guitar noise, thick drums soon come in, followed by more discordant guitar screeches. All the guitars soon stop and the drums and a synth bass are left to play behind Trent Reznor's and Mariqueen Maandig Reznor's low, smooth vocals and dominant drums, with the screechy, haunting guitars coming back in later. The lyrics are quite intimate, presenting two subjects talking, maybe asking each other questions about each other and answering them. They are slowly becoming each other, infecting each other, like parasites.

ngl it was hard to find anything about the set meaning, only everything about Trent's style and how he has mixed it with his wife and others, producing this album (so basically about the sound and production) so i guess this will be fully just my interpretation. very hannigram, once again, i have some other songs that remind me of other characters and stuff im gonna have to do smth about those too at some point lol

and again quite short, the song is very instrumental and feel based in my opinion but anyhow

------------------------------

Verse 1

"Yes, I can feel you

Yes, I believe

Yes, you can have me

Yes, I can breathe

Parasite

Yes, now I need you

Yes, you are mine

Yes, you have shown me

Yes, you define

Parasite"

through the whole song, the lines are sung at the same time, creating a feeling of unity and harmony, which the subjects seem to be agreeing to feel. They both feel and need each other, they believe in each other, they agree to devotion to each other and admitting how they have changed after being with each other, they let each other be dependent on one another - it seems like they're merging, like parasites. Maybe they chose the word parasite due to it's slightly negative connotations, maybe that's how the rest of the world sees them, infecting, controversial and desperate and obsessive with their love or unrightous and incorrect - considering that this is most likely based on Mariqueen and Trent, they have rattled the world a bit, Trent being the frontman of a harsh rock band known for its depressing and angry themes and involvement in drugs, Nine Inch Nails and Mariqueen bit less rattling, having been a former vocalist of West Indian Girls and a Playboy model for one of their magazines, but them two together - that have rattled the world, receiving some negative and racist reaction after finding out about the two getting married, even producing a song called "The Space In Between" which talks about their relationship and how the media has been treating them.

for hannigram, these lyrics remind me of them due to this, how they view unity and courtship. They seem to infect each other like parasites - they are quite dangerous to each other and to others around them. Hannibal seems to be like a parasite, he latched himself into Will and since then, hasn't let go of the idea that Will should be his and like him, trying to turn Will into him and understand him as he slowly feeds off of Will's sanity. Will recognises that after realising that Hannibal framed him for his own murders and tries to get revenge, letting Hannibal indulge in him and try to pretend to become Hannibal to try and frame him too, but this ends up with them slowly become more and more dependent on each other, to the point where they can't deny it anymore. It wasn't Will's intention at first, but as time passed by, they both have willingly began to accept each other and Will finally let Hannibal in. Both feel and need each other, they believe in each other, they agree to devotion to each other and admit to how they have changed each other.

in conclusion this is their song fr (<- what i say about every song i ever hear)

------------------------------

additional notes:

i've learned whilst researching for this that another song by htda, "the space in between" was actually used in a promo for hannibal holy shit i have this song in my playlist i am so writing about that one later

i have so many songs that technically apply for season 3 or where i could mention s3 and its driving me insane omfg but anyhow

i recommend the whole self-titled ep by them, it is very good

anyway hope you enjoyed<3

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unholyverse · 9 months

Text

waterparks // alternative press issue #341

(full article text under cut)

WATERPARKS

THESE POP-PUNK UPSTARTS HAVE CATCHY SONGS, AN ENDORSEMENT FROM THE MADDENS AND AN UNIRONIC LOVE FOR HAIR DYE AND FUNKY-COLORED JELL-O. THEY ALSO HAVE A LOT TO PROVE-AND THEY'RE READY TO GET TO WORK.

STORY: EVAN LUCY x PHOTOS: JONATHAN WEINER

Awsten Knight knows what you're thinking: This time last year, his band, Waterparks, were veritable nobodies. You'd probably not heard their two EPs (2012's Airplane Conversations and 2014's Black Light), and the band's SEO was likely so suspect, there's no way a Google search would place the Houston-based trio above their hometown Wet 'n' Wild.

What a difference a trip around the sun. makes. Since late last year, the group scored a record deal with Equal Vision, picked up Good Charlotte's Benji and Joel Madden as their managers, performed at the 2016 APMAS and even graced the cover of AP's Warped Tour issue-all before releasing their first album. Along the way, they've cultivated a passionate (and ever-growing) fanbase, thanks to an irreverent sense of humor, insatiable work ethic and saccharine-sweet pop-rock sound. But as their star has grown, so have the rumors and confusion about just how they ended up on a collision course with success.

"I saw somebody online say, 'Isn't this that industry-plant band? Like we were made by a label or something." Knight remarks from Los Angeles, where he and his bandmates are putting the finishing touches on bonus tracks for their debut full-length, Double Dare, and filming a video for the album's first single, "Stupid For You." "People are always like, "Where'd this band come from? This band blew up overnight! That's really not the case."

Indeed, it's been a grind for Waterparks, who formed back in 2011 and, after years of hustle and hard work, got signed last year after a demo serendipitously ended up in Equal Vision's online submission box. Even today, as Waterparks—Knight, guitarist/vocalist Geoff Wigington and drummer Otto Wood-seem to have an indefinite amount of momentum and a limitless future, there's always some humbling experience to remind them the big time is still a few steps away. Look no further than their method of transportation for this summer's Warped Tour: a modified Sprinter van handily equipped with sleeping quarters- but no air conditioning.

"The van didn't have A/C until we got to the North, Knight remembers. "We did Texas and Florida, the whole South, with no A/C. People thought we were in a bus. It'd be like, 'Oh yeah, when you guys go back to your bus…" He laughs. "How can you be egotistical when you're sitting there in a sweaty van going, 'Fucking kill me?'"

Lifestyles of the rich and famous it isn't, but that's fine with Waterparks. They're used to surprising people, whether it's with their origin story or their music. A testament to both their artistic vision and desire not to be pigeonholed as just another pop-punk band, Double Dare sounds like an album made by three men raised in iPod shuffle culture. The album opener "Hawaii (Stay Awake)" skews toward more standard pop-punk fare (a sound that definitely provides a backbone for the 12 tracks that follow), but the band are quick to add bits of pop, electronica and (surprisingly) hip- hop to the melting pot, leaving Double Dare feeling instantly reminiscent, yet wildly unpredictable. There's the unabashed pop charm of "Take Her To The Moon," a DeLorean ride back to the scene's neon days that's awash in glassy synths; the biting "Little Violence," which takes aim at "fake-ass band guys," along with the now-defunct site AbsolutePunk; "Stupid For You," a roller coaster of vocal runs mixed with razor-sharp hooks; and the jittery "Dizzy," which combines mile-a-minute rapped verses with a towering half-time chorus.

Knight, a textbook over-writer, wrote and demoed more than 40 songs for the album, which the group whittled down to the 17 or so they actually tracked in Los Angeles with producers Courtney Ballard and Benji Madden. What makes Double Dare such an engaging listen is not just the songwriting, but the way Waterparks dress it up. Throughout the album, Knight's voice serves almost as a third guitar, cutting in and out and swirling around the mix to give things added depth and a secret sonic weapon their peers lack.

"Listen to Kesha," Knight implores. "People have heard a lead guitar a billion times-no one gives a shit about a sick guitar lead. What's going to sound sonically cooler to the average human: a lead guitar- which people have been hearing for the longest time- or the literally unlimited sounds I can cut my voice up into and make it [serve the same purpose]? It just sounds cooler."

As a teenager, Knight studied raps by the likes of Busta Rhymes and Ludacris (he even performed a cover of Fergie's "Fergalicious" at an early show), and he thinks it would be "sweet" to be in a boy band. "You have to stand out, otherwise there's nothing interesting about what you're doing," he explains. "We've always tried to do different shit. A lot of our songs are a pop-driven thing, but it's a band. Girl-pop, to me, is the best genre [in music]. Even if you don't speak English and you hear a Kesha song or a Katy Perry song, it's going to sound so good. The melody is everything: It sounds so happy. Put those songs next to whatever progressive metal band and their fucking guitar sweeps. That's the difference between being a band people like and being a musician's band. [Adopts nerdy voice] 'Oh, that time signature change, blah blah! No one gives a shit except nerdy dudes, and nerdy dudes aren't going to buy your record, anyway. I want to make shit my little sister and her friends would be into."

If Knight is that unabashedly honest about his musical intentions, the words he writes take it a step further. At its core, Double Dare is the antithesis to the public image Waterparks have cultivated over the years. From their irreverent music videos to any number of off- the-rails interviews (including some from this summer's Warped Tour where Knight donned a wedding veil), the band's public persona is that of perpetual Peter Pans. While that might be true (Knight frequently drops words like "butthurt" in conversation), the open-book nature of his lyrics here reveals life isn't all fun and feces jokes.

As such, the songs on Double Dare read like pages ripped from a personal journal. Whether he's dealing with crippling insecurity ("I wish I was as brave as my last name"), self-doubt ("And I'm doing all right/ But is 'all right' enough?/Because I'm living my dreams, but I live at home") or true love ("If you died, I'd hope you'd haunt me"), Knight's words are blunt, painstakingly detailed and instantly relatable. He might project as a court jester, but he's deadly serious about his art.

"There's a time when Awsten can be serious, and that's when he's talking about his music, Benji Madden offers. "In order to sell records or magazines, people feel like they have to be sensational or play a funny game. If you talk to Awsten about anything other than music, you'll get totally jokey, bullshit answers-which I love. But if you talk to him about music, he's a really smart, intentional, thoughtful guy."

"Being honest about it is the best way to go about it," Knight says of his songs. "I've never liked the vague lyrics, like, [jokingly sings] "I've gotta find my way. I've gotta get out of this place! All my favorite lyricists are killer with metaphors or are able to uniquely describe things. I like getting into things and being specific." He references the acoustic ballad "21 Questions," easily one of the album's highlights, but a song slated for the cutting-room floor until Madden stepped in. ("I feel like that song could be one of those scene classics," the Good Charlotte guitarist offers.) It's hard to imagine the album without it.

Outside of being a steady hand in the studio, the Maddens are the perfect mentors for Knight, Wigington and Wood. After all, it was 15 years ago that Good Charlotte went through everything Waterparks are currently navigating, claims of being a test-tube band and all. They've learned everything is cyclical, and they're passing on the lessons they learned to the bands they manage.

"They're so wise," Wigington explains in a separate interview. "You shut up and listen. They've told us, 'Hey, things are going to start getting weird. There will be things you haven't been used to, especially if you're out on the road! But they've told us to look out for each other and have each other's back and helped instill a sense of camaraderie so we can deal with whatever weird shit comes our way."

If their current career trajectory continues, things will be getting weirder and weirder in the Waterparks camp soon. The band have secured the opening spot on Sleeping With Sirens' fall tour, and they're already making plans well into 2017. With a new album ready and the furthest reaches of the scene at their fingertips, it seems like there's really no limit to how big this thing can get. It's already surpassed their wildest dreams in the past year; imagine what one more could bring. Not that it would change their demeanor, of course.

"I'd like to be able to live comfortably to the point where I could ride a bike into a swimming pool filled with Jell-O and have it not be a big deal," Knight says unflinchingly, when asked what success would look like for him. "I was thinking blue or purple because I like cooler colors. Red seems messy. Not yellow or orange, because I don't like those flavors as much. I used to be allergic to blue dye when I was younger, so I'd probably pick that just so I could be like, 'Fuck you." alt

#sorry i had to obviously edit the poster photo it's been yellowing from being on my wall #waterparks #awsten knight #geoff wigington #otto wood #i.zip #reading this and realizing they've become an antithesis to some things said here why why why

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outofmydepthatapublicbeach · 7 months

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hiii! could you write something about Naomi dating a bassist In a famous rock band?

jj chats: hiii!! i love this idea so so much!!! love all the MUNA requests i am getting!!! <3

warnings: RPF, no use of y/n

feedback is encouraged and i'd love to get some just please be kind!!!

I feel like Naomi would go to all of your concerts, a lot of the time they’d stay backstage, cheering you on from there. But I could definitely see them surprise you and show up in the crowd!!!

Like they’d text you pre show and tell you to look out for the person wearing the neon green top hat, and you’d be very confused until you get out on stage and see Naomi cheering for you, with a ridiculously large neon green top hat on.

Since the both of you are big time musicians, and paparazzi exist… There are quite a lot of photos of your private moments like dates or just errands that were taken from hidden cameras.

You two have come up with a solution, you put on crazy disguises when you go out in public, going as far as wearing wigs. You have a private instagram account that you just have close friends and family added where you post a selfie of the two of you, or like a full length mirror pic with the caption with like two made up names, really playing into these persona’s yall have created. Like “Duke of the Horses and Rose Petal out to the pizza parlor”

Yall have yet to be caught.

I could see Naomi getting one of their favorite lyrics from one of your band's songs tattooed on them.

Y’all def have just music making sessions where you just play random chords/melodies for a few hours to try and create something

I could see your band and MUNA being very close, like they hangout all the time, go to each other's concerts.

I am imagining that the reader is in a rock band that is more popular than MUNA, so I could see if your band goes on tour they invite MUNA as openers and stuff.

Kinda like how boygenius would come out during MUNA’s set, your band would come out and play your instruments as backup, you would of course be close to Naomi.

Omg!!! I could see you really concentrating while playing and Naomi just coming up behind you, wrapping their arms around your waist and nuzzling their face into your neck!!

Y’all would support each other through anything and always be around to ask for musical advice and help with instrument things!!!

They could teach you synths!!!

You could sit in while they produce MUNA’s records and give pointers or suggestions!!

You’d be the first to hear any of their new music, and Naomi would be one of the first to hear any of your group's new music.

Y’all would constantly be repping each other's merch!!!

#naomi mcpherson x reader #muna x reader #naomi mcpherson fluff #naomi mcpherson au #naomi mcpherson fanfic #jj writes #anon #requests open

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didyoulookforme · 21 days

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Curious to know if any of your Matty’s would have kids 🥹 If so, how would that go?

hhmmm hmmmmm. been thinking about this one for a bit and out of any of them, postmatty would be the one <3

the pregnancy would be an accident because birth control isn’t perfect. she’d honestly be freaking out when her period doesn’t come on time and after a few more weeks, she calls matty at work crying and confesses to him what’s going on. he drops everything and leaves his shift early, picking up several tests on his way and racing home right after. he spends some time comforting her before she even has the courage to take a test. when the results do come up as positive, they’re just sitting on the floor of the bathroom, matty holding her close, often kissing the top of her head and telling her that everything will be okay, that she doesn’t have to make a decision yet and he’s happy with her choice and will respect it.

as the days pass, both girlie and matty obviously talk about it A LOT and slowly start to get excited about the prospect of being parents. her wondering how he would be as a dad. probably very sweet, caring, full of the worst dad jokes. the epitome of a dilf (which she's not wrong). he ends up reading a lot of stuff online about having a kid, always noticing how other parents interact with their children out in public. matty becomes hyperaware of any adults that walk around with babies and at some point he gets butterflies thinking about holding his own in his arms. he realizes that he does want to be a dad, but never pressures her into making a decision. but one day when he comes homes from work, he gathers the mail by her door, noticing a small note, similar to the ones he used to leave in girlie's mailbox years prior. he recognized the handwriting right away. "let's do it :)"

it's almost as if he falls in love with her all over again while she's pregnant, finding her so fucking beautiful that he's just horny 24/7. "guess it must be the hormones or something." she also pokes fun at him when it becomes clear that he develops a breeding kink, but oh she's totally into it.

of course matty will play records almost every night, making note of those that make the baby kick. he definitely cries (but obviously denies it) out of sheer happiness when one of those was new order's power, corruption & lies as that's the band they originally bonded over.

when a little baby boy is born, he has a full head of brown hair somewhat curling at the ends and all she can say is “i know where he gets that from…” he is the spitting image of matty.

girlie’s heart melts whenever matty lies down to have skin to skin time with their tiny son. she often finds him shirtless on the couch, little one nestled in his chest, large calloused hands making the baby look even smaller, sweet puppy kevin even sitting besides the sofa looking up at them. the perfect picture of her small but perfect family. she walks over to run her fingers thru matty’s hair. “don’t think it is you who’s supposed to be napping…” he barely opens one eye and grumbles something like “‘m not sleeping”. suuuuure.

when they FINALLY get to have sex again, it's all slow and tender and romantic but everything comes to a halt when the baby starts crying, matty dropping his head but laughing at the same time. "can't believe i'm being cockblocked by my own kid." girlie's about to get up to deal with the situation, but he says that he can do it, putting his boxers on before he heads out of the room. she definitely rewards him after :))

matty makes it his life's mission to ensure his son has the COOLEST music taste, scheduling little music listening nights every week where their boy gets to pick a record from their collection. he'll go into all the nuances of why this chord progression is unbelievable or fanboy about a certain synth tone or tell about the first time he ever heard a track or saw it being performed live. "and this is the first one your mummy and i ever danced to" whenever "fantasy" by mariah carey plays one night.

and this is definitely dad postmatty. less baggy clothes, hair often slicked back, and necklaces still around most of the time <3

#sorry this is so long lol #thank you for indulging me!#messages #postmatty au #postmatty asks #postmatty!dad

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th3-0bjectivist · 3 months

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youtube

Dear listener, recently I’ve been semi-regularly online gaming (Grim Dawn on Steam) and exchanging musical notes with Tumblr mindful-hempress. In a recent fun exchange, she sent me a video of a fairy girl licking amphibians and tripping balls in the forest. Fresh off her astute recommendation I asked her if she was ‘ready to dance??’ and introduced her for the first time to the music of Phantogram. Having never heard of them, she responded very positively to the music video for their song Fall in Love from their 2013 album Voices (smash play on the track above). Specifically, she praised the voice of lead singer Sarah Barthel and kept on sampling their tracks, I assume, well into the effervescent night. So, it worked on her. Now I ask you, Tumblr. ARE YOU READY TO DANCE!? If the answer is affirmatively YES, YES, YES!!!… scroll down for some more details, you degenerate sicko. If the answer is no, well, then kindly fuck off?? If the answer is middling, read on...

This is a psychedelic pop duo I’ve highly enjoyed for about a decade, and they managed to hook me fairly quickly with their street-beat, synth-heavy tunes. Their music is equal parts batshit crazy and deeply emotional, and they generally manage to hit both extremes on every single one of their albums. A New York band consisting of two pre-school friends, this group found at least a tepid amount of initial success with extensive interest in singles related to their self-titled 2009 EP. A year later, they released their first full length album, Eyelid Movies, which, while not a slam-dunk music-market success, enabled them to set up their foundational roots and original sound. Starting in the mid-2010’s their music started to pop up on the radio, commercials and even video games. Recently, I was playing Grand Theft Auto V and one of their songs randomly started playing as I was cruising around Los Santos. I consider them to be one, if not my favorite electropop act, as they can produce sounds that are both emotionally gritty and hypnotic, all while keeping me interested in what they’re going to do next. Perhaps the best part of music by Phantogram is that no matter what, I always have a hell of a lot of FUN listening to them. Whether I’m trying to decode some of their lyrics, or listening passively in my car to one of their darker tunes, or just sitting at home listening to one of their full-length albums… I can’t get over how much FUN this duo is to listen to and watch. Just below, you’ll find You Don’t Get Me High Anymore from their 2016 album Three. Smash play and as always, enjoy!

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Just wanted to point out that I bookended this post with a song about falling in, then out of love. I forgot to mention above that I really enjoy all the tricky wordplay in a lot of their jams. Even if all the lyrics don’t make 100% sense, they still can throw together one hell of a well-constructed poetical verse. I don't really like pop music, but I like Phantogram A LOT. Image source: https://phantogram.bandcamp.com/track/as-far-as-i-can-see

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autumnatical · 20 days

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Everything Everything, live @ TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, 01/09/24

First time seeing them in over 6 years ! ! ! I don't travel a lot, but it was worth the trip to NL just for the gig alone, not even the 3 hour delay on my return trip could change that (thanks DB).

Random assortment of thoughts (athoughtment):

venue was a bit of an odd choice, it was a nice building and very central, but they had a bunch of other concert halls (mainly for classical/orchestral music I think?), and EE played in a tiny hall on the sixth floor. for some reason, they made us wait downstairs in the foyer where the queue very quickly blockaded anyone from getting through, so they had to shuffle us around a bunch.

also there was a (classical?) music festival happening in town and some events from that overlapped with the show, so there were two Very Distinct crowds in the building and our queue got some Disapproving looks lol.

despite the weirdness of the venue, the hall where they played was great, good acoustics and very intimate. me and a friend were there pretty early and stood second row from the stage, though we drifted a bit over to the left because I chatted briefly with some folks there.

crowd was great too, good vibes, everyone I met was lovely. someone complimented my ATB shirt and a few people got really excited and started pointing at me at the start of Kemosabe :^) also shoutout to the person in front of me who moved the water bottles on stage so I could see the setlist.

there was a girl directly in front of us in the queue and at the stage who was wearing an AMAZING homemade Mountainhead shirt, a button-down with the logo on the front and "I left my work in the pit to come here" on the back, which (I think) she embroidered herself. really need to step up my game the next time I see them lol.

the show itself was stunning, though sadly Pete wasn't there :( I was hyping him up to my friend (who hadn't seen them live before) because he's usually the only one who matches Jon's energy/stage presence. we were directly in front of Alex and he might as well be wearing an "I'd rather be programming synths right now"-shirt lol.

the setlist was really solid, though leaning very heavily into singles (I think only Metroland and NotLK were album-only, and I was blown away by both), and not playing too many newer songs. I can understand why they do it (people at the front were very into it the entire time, but most of the crowd obviously got much more involved near the end when they played Cough Cough/Distant Past), but it's a bit of a shame anyway.

also 90 minutes every 6 years is not enough I feel like a kid whose parents (british bands and european tours) got divorced, badly. have they considered that they could just play for 3 hours? maybe?? as a treat???

I feel like someone on setlist dot fm is making fun of me specifically, bc they added Violent Sun to the setlist which. it was definitely not on. like I saw the setlist on stage at the start and also if they had played it, I would not be alive any longer (as per my previous correspondance).

I don't really understand Mad Stone as the opener (they could swap Mad Stone and Wild Guess around and it would work much better imo), but I was glad for all of the Mountainhead we got.

Jon very clearly sang Arch-Jeremy for one entire chorus and I tragically didn't record it (only have a couple of videos which I'll post later). but it's real and it happened and it's real also.

burned guitar my beloved but also beloathed. I think Jon's on-stage performance is much more engaging when he doesn't have to play guitar and can move around more freely. but also the burnt guitar is really cool.

Enter the Mirror live fucks so severely. that is all.

the show was completely sold out (I think the venue holds ~600 people) and merch was also pretty much gone by the time I left (I got litchrally the last shirt and they only had a few tote bags left I think), so I hope it made enough money for them to consider an EU tour soon. EE at the Gloria in Cologne is my dream gig, so I'm manifesting that for next year. . .

#everything everything #mountainhead #tivoli vredenburg #utrecht #2024

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butterflyintochains · 5 months

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The Starset Primer

Hey, all, just a friendly Messenger of four years popping in to tell you about my favourite band.

Starter Songs

Typically, Starset songs can be broken up into categories to get you started.

Lead Singles:

My Demons Monster Manifest The Breach Brave New World

Love Ballads:

Halo Starlight Satellite Solstice Otherworldly.

Heavy Songs:

Down With The Fallen Carnivore Frequency Into The Unknown Gravity of You Bringing It Down Telekinetic Other Worlds Than These Devolution Something Wicked Brave New World

Tele-Songs:

Telescope Telepathic Telekinetic Tunnelvision

Album Outros:

Rise and Fall Everglow Diving Bell Something Wicked.

My Personal Go-To List would be:

My Demons (the first ever Starset song!) Carnivore Halo Monster Ricochet Unbecoming Manifest Where The Skies End Diving Bell Leaving This World Behind Earthrise Infected Brave New World (the newest song!)

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✨The Albums✨

Transmissions (2014)

Their first album, technically made when it was just Dustin!

Singles: My Demons, Carnivore, Halo, Let It Die

A really solid debut album in general.

Their most iconic album to date, everyone likes this one.

A bit experimental, a proof of concept.

Vessels (2017)

The second album, and arguably their best.

Singles: Monster, Ricochet, Satellite, Telepathic

The most epic of the four so far, and the fan favourite.

Really long too! Over an hour of amazing songs!

Something for everyone on this album.

Divisions (2019)

Their third album, and last pre-covid.

Singles: Manifest, Where The Skies End, Echo, Diving Bell

A more industrial sound with a lot more traditional rock.

A bit polarising, some love it, some don't.

Really raw lyrics, if you're into that.

Horizons (2021)

Their fourth, and most recent, album.

Singles: The Breach, Infected, Leaving This World Behind, Earthrise, Devolution

Sounds like a movie soundtrack.

Another polarising album, but is a really consistent one.

Goes hard into emotional lyrics, and keeps you on your toes.

S5 (2024?)

The fifth, upcoming album, doesn't have a name or official cover yet.

Single: Brave New World

Sounds like it's gonna be super heavy, so we're all very excited!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Band Members

Starset are currently a seven piece band, apparently this is how it was always meant to be, so the lineup is permanent now, and will be for the foreseeable future! Each of the band members use a number, no one knows what the numbers mean yet, though.

The current lineup is:

Dustin Bates - Lead Vocals, Band Leader/Founder, and main songwriter. Ron DeChant - Bassist, Backing Vocals, Keyboards Brock Richards - Guitarist, Backing Vocals Adam Gilbert - Drummer Siobhan Cronin-Richards - Violinist, Keyboards Zuzana Engererova - Cellist Cory Juba - Keyboards, Synths, Backing Guitars

Dustin Bates - 3301

The leader, founder, and mastermind behind the band.

Main vocalist, and writes literally all of their songs.

Has a really cute French Bulldog called Ernie, who is kinda the band's mascot.

Has a Masters in Electrical Engineering, and almost had a PHD in Avionics, but gave up on it to focus on music. Scary smart, has written both of the band's lore books himself, and engineers their stage setup.

Has the most relaxing speaking voice ever, and 90% of fans are at least a little bit in love with him.

The only one who really does interviews.

He's just a really cool guy, and really seems to love his fans.

Ron DeChant - 5501

The bassist, and easily the second-in-command to Dustin, they were bandmates in Dustin's last band.

Lowkey manages the band, he books tours for them and helps handle logistics.

Was in the military before he became a musician.

Was the first person Dustin went to when he formed the band, so they're kind of the original two members.

Had to get the entire band and crew back to the USA from Russia as Covid hit.

Had to sit the European Horizons tour out due to shoulder surgery, but is back now!

Currently owns the whiteboard the band's lore was written on!

Brock Richards - 5502

One quarter of the core four of the band, plays guitar and is a backup singer to Dustin sometimes.

One half of the Starset Power Couple - he and Siobhan are married.

Seems like a really chilled out guy, but has apparently throttled someone to protect Siobhan once during the Vessels era.

A big gamer!

Has a really good knowledge of production, and a sick af guitar collection.

He, Dustin, and Ron are always front of the stage, Brock usually is at Dustin's left.

Has worked on music with Siobhan's other band - Lost Symphony.

Adam Gilbert - 5503

The final of the core four of the band who were there for the first album and tour.

Runs a drumming course called Drumabuse.

Also is an art major, who sells his works on the side.

Often stays longest talking to fans at VIP shows.

Dyes his hair a different colour for each album cycle apparently.

Has probably the biggest social media presence of the band, the rest being chronically offline.

Has gotten into controversy for his political views in the past, but let's hope he's more open-minded now.

Siobhan Cronin-Richards - 7701

The violin queen herself, Siobhan has been with the band as a permanent member since 2017, first performing with them during the Vessels era.

One of two members of the band with formal training in their instrument, Zuzana being the other one.

The other half of the Starset Power Couple with Brock.

From Michigan, but based out of Ohio and Florida.

Besties with Zuzana.

Has another band called Lost Symphony, kind of a classical/metal hybrid genre.

Hosts a podcast with the other members of Lost Symphony, which has become the Unofficial Starset Podcast.

Zuzana Engererova - 7702

The cello queen of the band, joined as a permanent member in the 2019 Divisions era, replacing Mariko Muranaka, and has been with the band ever since.

Is the only European member of the band, being Slovakian.

Has often talked about how difficult it is for her to play cello standing up, saying her back and shoulder hurt after tours are done.

Besties with Siobhan.

Based in Vegas, and plays cello at events there in the offseason.

Is also a frequent collab with Lost Symphony, I think she's a fourth member now, but I'm not sure.

Second most frequent band member on Siobhan's podcast, Brock being most frequent.

Cory Juba - 7703

The newest member of the band, completing the vision Dustin had back in 2013, joining for the 2022 Horizons tour.

Another could-have-been doctor in the band. Cory was apparently studying a medical degree before getting into music.

Has known Dustin for a really long time, and has helped with various projects of his.

Got the call to join the band while hiking in British Columbia.

Seems like a really nice guy overall, and goes crazy on stage.

Accidentally spilled water on the show laptop once, causing a lot of panic.

Helped out with synths and keys on the Starset rendition of Waiting on The Sky To Change.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Lore

While most bands might have a concept album, Starset are a concept band, the entire band are built around a central story. You don't need to know the lore to be a fan of the band, but it helps.

Dustin has put out two books dealing with the lore. The Prox Transmissions in 2014, and A Brief History of The Future in 2024.

From what I understand, here's how it goes:

While working on his electricity experiments, Nikola Tesla accidentally receives a message from the 2040s from a far off planet called Prox. He ignores it. A few decades later, Stephen Browning receives the same signal, and enlists Aston Wise to help him interpret it.

The signal warns of an oncoming takeover by someone called The Architect, who is in charge of something either called The Architecture or The Everything Machine. The runaway technology creating something called The Brain-Machine Interface (BMI, kinda like Neuralink). Necessitating leaving Earth for another planet.

Browning founds the Order of Teslonia, aiming to keep the signal secret and work behind the scenes to ensure this future doesn't happen. Wise, however, seeks to make the information public. Forming the rival Starset Society, which leads to the band itself forming.

It's later revealed that along the way, Wise becomes The Architect, and leads said takeover, losing all control of the Starset Society in the process. Forming the New East, New West, and making the BMI mandatory for citizens. A rebellion forms to counter this takeover, while Browning's group are working to get everyone off world to Prox.

We don't quite know the ins and outs of everything yet, but this is the lore as far as I understand it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some Other Things To Know

Starset don't have concerts, they have Demonstrations.

Starset fans are called Messengers.

The band's three unofficial mottoes are: 'Spread The Message', 'Ignorance is Slavery, Knowledge is Freedom', and 'Fuck The New East'

The band have been fairly family friendly with lyrical content, until Brave New World came out, and Dustin said 'fucking' three times.

There's a song for everyone, you will find something you like.

We're a super welcoming community!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, yeah, that's about it!

Over and out!

I:S::K:F!

#starset

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