|
"'Fool's Gold' has a long history that dates back to a basement in Twin Mountain, NH that smelled strongly of laundry detergent and warm amplifiers. Back in the days of Mantra, 'Demise of Solace' was the last "new" song I wrote for the band, and the beginning of my experiments in progressive metal. It was very very tentative, granted, but the tempo change going into the breakdown was fun as shit to play live, and it worked for the song. I came up with the main riff right after we recorded Glass Prison and never really brought it into practice because it just seemed really plain to me. It was the first unmelodic thing I'd ever written and I just wasn't really confident in my songwriting abilities to bring it up. I played the intro a few times and it never really made a splash, until one day when we were ready for a new heavy song, and I finally caved. We ended up loving the song, and it's been around ever since, in one form or another. It's weird because the main riff for 'Camera Obscura' was me interpreting one of Jake's riffs, which was an interpretation of the second half of the chorus riff in 'Demise'. It's weird how these things work out, especially over the course of a few years. All in all though, 'Demise' was the heaviest thing I've ever written, even before I figured out that dynamics are one part of what makes a song truly heavy.
The road from 'Demise' to 'Fool's Gold' went straight through Radiohead's '2+2=5', which is one of the more memorable songs I've heard in the past five years. The moments that lead up to the sudden full band entrance are very tense, and that always stuck with me until I wrote the first half of 'Gold', where it's more or less my own interpretation of that musical moment. Then to add to the theme of "extreme dynamics" in the song, there's a double time breakdown that segues abruptly back into the main tempo when it's done, a la the original song of 'Demise'. If you haven't heard the original song then none of this makes any sense to you, I suppose, so if you've read this far and still don't have an idea of what it sounds like, then here's your synopsis: a soft song for the first minute and a half that switches over on a dime to galloping double bass and growling guitars for the second half. The end, Sigorney Weaver saves the day, and the world is free of overpriced hair products."
|
