Kissing Judas

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I wanted to put some rock and roll music to it. It was really asking for it. He had the chord progression on acoustic and the lyrics and melody all written and brought it to us and it wrote itself from that point, at least on the drums. It was like there’s only one thing I can really play here. And that’s something like My Darkest Days type, just straightforward strip club rock. Someone’s going to be shaking their ass on stage to this thing. It’s not even going to take any effort for it.

Bret Gyrich: It’s a workout for Corey and I when we play that song.

Corey Sullivan: I regret the tempo we picked. It doesn’t it really sound that fast. But when you’re actually playing, it’s like, Why did I do this to myself?

Bret Gyrich: Oh, I got to worry about the range of the song. It doesn’t sound like it’s high, but when I sing it....

Corey Sullivan: When you put the energy in, it’s like..

Bret Gyrich: Yeah!

Dave Sullivan: This was another one where he was playing it on acoustic guitar and kind of singing along strumming along and I listened to it and it was like, ‘Dude, give this give that to us. ‘Have you ever played this with another band,’ he’s like, ‘Nah, I showed it to other guys and they really weren’t into it.’ Like, ‘let’s do it.’ Corey came up... It started with the drum thing, I came in with the riff coming in. The way he did it, I just tried to do the guitar around the vocals to what would fit in kind of... we kind of did it a little backwards, because usually the chorus has a certain type of rhythm, then the bridge is gonna have another kind of rhythm. And then the verses will have their own. I kind of wrote it backwards to where on the chorus instead of being just a straight power chord with his vocals behind it, I’d crank on the wah and just follow along with it and he sings it and it just all comes together. And you know, when I sent this one off to Matt to mix it, this became his favorite song. He was like, ‘Dude, this is like, I love this. This has such a cool feel to it. So modern. So you know, a little bit different, a lot different than, you know, a lot of things I’ve heard out there before. I really love it.’ And a lot of people have really taken to this song as well. I mean, the coolest thing is we’ve gotten so many people that have heard the stuff, and everybody has a different song that they love. And it is so great to hear all these cool replies about what they think about stuff and I’m just be happy hearing it didn’t suck half as bad as I thought it would. You know, everybody really has taken to you know, they find something in each song.

Music News: All right. On “Alone,” you have Matt Vu back on bass on that one. Who wrote that song?

Morgan Sullivan: I did.

Music News: And it’s about?

Morgan Sullivan: That song is for Mr. Kendall Mason, shout out to Kendall. It’s Kendall’s song.

Music News: It is.

Morgan Sullivan: He doesn’t mind if I tell the story. I’ll cover that because he doesn’t mind.

Music News: Oh, we all know Kendall.

Morgan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. He had some rough times a long, long, long time ago. He’s been sober a really long time. He was talking about how it would feel walking in, and there’s a big crowd, but you’re alone.

Music News: I can understand that.

Morgan Sullivan: People all around. So it’s about that. And then I just took off on that.

Dave Sullivan: Everybody’s like, hey, there’s that guy. There’s that guy, but in your own head you’re like, you feel like you’re an outcast and by yourself and nobody knows you that... you’re walking in a room and completely isolated in your own mind.

Music News: Yeah, it’s easy to be alone In a crowded room. It really is mentally.

Morgan Sullivan: It is. Sometimes we hurt ourselves more than sometimes-other times. Oh, and the rest of it I like to leave up to people’s interpretation.

Music News: Right! Well, this was definitely the old Kendall because the new Kendall seems to be quite different from the old one.

Morgan Sullivan: He’s an amazing person. I didn’t know the old Kendall but I would have loved him anyway. He’s a good guy.

Bret Gyrich: Kendall’s my hero.

Dave Sullivan: To me the best. God, how do I even put this? The best thing was the first time we even played it, we had just like, put it together and first time we actually played it, and did this with Brett to where he can literally pull the emotion out of the vocals the way that we meant it to be. We played it and Kendall’s down in the front row and about 15 other people that were all up on the front stage. They kind of know the story, they kind of know Kendall. They kind of know us. And when we got done playing that everybody’s got tears in their eyes. And, you know, Kendall is crying. I’m like, I’m sorry, it wasn’t that bad. Was it? You know, like, no, it hit me and I was like that. When you can make a connection like that, that makes it all worth everything.

Corey Sullivan: Musically, that one was fun to arrange and put together because there’s three distinct dynamics to it. In the beginning, it’s a very quiet, very mellow, somber song. And then it comes in with a little bit of drums, a little bit of bass, but it’s not super high energy and in that second chorus it takes off a little bit. The third verse has a lot more energy to it. And then at the third chorus it just... everything goes berserk from there. And it kind of explains what was going through his head as he was getting closer and closer to the peak of the insanity going on in his life. Right.

Dave Sullivan: Yeah, his mind was crumbling further and further.

Morgan Sullivan: Not Kendall’s necessarily, but the man in the song. Like I said, I took Kendall’s story and I kind of took a lot of license in it. So I just want to make it clear. We’re not talking about Kendall’s brain was shattering. Okay, I just took some creative license with this area.

Corey Sullivan: The arrangement of it describes the spiral downward?

Music News: He was the inspiration behind it?

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