8 minute read
Twin Red
TWIN RED was founded in 2011, at that time under the name of Client. and with a musical output that can be described as a mixture of melodic Hardcore, Punk and Alternative Rock. 5 years, two EPs and one album later the 5 guys just released their second album Please Interrupt through Evil Greed, one of Europe’s leading hardcore labels. Instead of a typical interview, we asked the guys to write a bunch of words for each song, unveiling their thoughts and lyric procedure. Enjoy!
Pictures & band logo provided by Evil Greed.
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www.facebook.com/twinredband twinred.bandcamp.com evilgreed.net
In Twin Red, Alex and I write all of the songs. Since both of us now live in different cities, it is hard for us to write songs together. This is why the songs on Please Interrupt were all written either by Alex or by me. For us this is a good and a bad thing: It’s good because you can make it your song and put in all the ideas and inspirations you have while writing it. But at the same time, the song gets limited by only including your influences.
So when we practiced the songs for the recordings, a lot of them were pretty much already in their final form with Alex and me only adding some second guitars or solos to it. In the end we are all happy with the turnout though.
is adding the lyrics to it. It is always surprising for us to play a new song with me singing to it for the first time. Sometimes, adding lyrics to a song makes it seem like a completely different song. I get the chance to add some new melodies and highlight certain parts. It’s always great fun.
I guess the coolest part of writing lyrics is that you’re inspiriting your music. You’re not just adding words, you’re also adding a story. And by that you’re making it possible for the listeners to create tons of pictures in their imagination which again creates individual moods and atmospheres.
Below I’d like to run through some songs and lyrics on our new album Please Interrupt.
The first song on the album is called Replace My Head. This is actually my favorite song on the record. I wrote almost the entire song, including the drumming. The only thing that was added to it was Alex’ solo, which I think is the coolest part of the song (I’m always looking forward for the solo to begin). The song is about being at home in your familiar environment but wishing about being somewhere else. It’s about the thought of spending your time in a place or situation you don’t want to be in and the concern of missing out on something somewhere else. At the same time you don’t really want to lose the things you have where you are right now because you don’t know if you’ll find what you’re looking for and if it will make you happier than you are right now. The chorus Your head feels like it’s water, flowing on the floor tries to
describe this struggle: your thoughts are everywhere and you can’t really make up your mind or decide what’s best for you.
The song Distance allies to a very similar idea.
Another song on the record is called Burned By The Sun. This song tries to deal with failing at something you really wanted to accomplish while others point their fingers at you, saying “We knew you couldn’t do it”. There is something I learned in life and it’s the fact that failing is a part being human. That is why I wrote that sometimes your crown gets broken but you can still wear it with pride. Most people laughing at you in these situations couldn’t have done it any better. It is always so easy to blame others when at the same time you have your own cross to bear. The most important thing is that you get back up and try to do it better or differently the next time.
Waking Up Tomorrow is the sixth song on the record. I guess this song is the happiest song on the record lyrically and musically. It might even be the happiest song I’ve ever written, haha. It’s about knowing a person on your side that makes you forget the rest of the world. This person can be your best friend as well as your significant or anyone you feel a special connection to. It is important to keep these people (or pets) as
close to you as possible. There’s a lot in life that tries to get the best of you. But as long as there is somebody you can trust and hold on to, you don’t have to worry about that because you’re not alone. So yeah, pretty happy and positive, right? Hold on to your friends.
The last song on the record is titled Way Out. It is about a friend of ours who took his own life earlier this year. We weren’t really too close to him but close enough to be really shocked and concerned by his suicide. We’ve known him for some years and he was one of the first to book a show for us. He sometimes was a little strange and I know quite some people that didn’t really get along with him and his attitude. I always thought he was a strange but funny guy that had done very positive things for the music scene. That being said, he was the last person I could have imagined to commit suicide. At the same time though, how does a person that is likely to take his or her own life, look like? What are typical signs? I don’t think that there is an answer for these kind of questions. Depression comes in a lot of ways and some people are very good at hiding their true thoughts and feelings behind a smiling face. I’m not in a position to judge his decision. I think nobody is. However, death is the final exit and I’m asking myself if there could have been any other decision, any other road to take. These questions will remain unanswered.
The person I am talking about had a blog on the internet that I didn’t know of before. I found out about it the day I heard about his passing. On the blog he described his struggle in detail and explained how it affected his life until he reached the point where he completely lost track. I didn’t know what to feel while reading it. Of course, I was sad but I also was angry and I couldn’t understand his perspectives on certain situations. But again, who am I to judge or even understand?
But it was his farewell letter that made me think a lot about everything I have in life and the fact that one day I’ll also be gone. (I tried to write down these thoughts in the song ‚Won’t Get Around‘.) Some verses I use in ‚Way Out‘ are actually lines that I took from his blog. I’m not calling the person by his name right now because I don’t really want the song to be about just him. For me of course this song will always be about him, but besides the fact that I don’t have the right to publish his name and his private story, I’d like to keep the song as openly and anonymously as possible so that other people, that have made similar experiences and lost someone in their lives, might relate to this song. To me it was important to write these lyrics by including quotations, because in this song I am telling a personal story of which I am not the narrator.
As you can see, I included lots of different thoughts, ideas and fears into these lyrics. While writing the record, we didn’t really try to follow a certain concept or anything. I just wrote about whatever affected me during the process of this record. Some of these songs are very personal and deal with fears and hopes of my own life. This is why I chose the album title to be called ‚Please Interrupt‘: Good and satisfying things happen as well as bad and destructive things. Sometimes you feel like you can reach the sun, sometimes the weight of the world is on your shoulders, trying to get you on your knees. The phrase ‚Please Interrupt‘ is meant to be as an exclamation to anyone who can answer some of the questions I cannot answer myself, you know like ‚Please interrupt my words if you have an answer to my questions or if you can take away the fears I have or if you can promise that good things will stay as they are.‘ But as I mentioned earlier, I also tried not to be too personal in my writing. Maybe one day someone reads one of our songs and thinks ‚Man, I can really apply this verse or this chorus onto a certain situation of my own life.‘ I mean, this would be exactly what I tried to do: Even though I am talking about things that happened in my life, I want to leave room for different interpretations. Make my song, your song.
