(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today the members of alt-rock powerhouse Lakeherst tell us about "Summer Fires" from their brand new album "Euan Aura". We now turn it over to Lakeherst for the story:Singer Dan Grattan: The story behind "Summer Fires" is about a transition period, where you know the future is inevitable but a certain part of you wants to hang onto the moment that you're in. The elongated title "Summer fires are autumn's ashes" is representative of something that burns so bright and feverishly but eventually burns out and becomes nothing more than a memory. The idea for the melody came pretty easily. I usually try to counter what Mike Rathfon's guitar is doing so that the two parts come out side by side to tell the story. I knew from the start that there had to be two vocal parts. We tried other members of the band but something was missing from the sound. Luckily for us, Mike isn't the only musically inclined member of the Rathfon clan. His sister, Michelle, stepped up to the challenge of recording with us and her sweet, yet haunting, vocal part that really adds to the eclectic nature of the song. We knew we were onto something with "Summer Fires" and it has turned out to be one of the most popular tracks from the album.
Bassist Cody Moyer: As I remember it: I had the idea for the drum part first, then came up with the keyboard part, which is, to me, really the heart and soul of the song. Next, Mike added the guitar part and then we followed that with the simple bass riffs because there was so much going on in the verses. Because the verses were so busy, we decided to make the chorus simple and kind of let the one guitar lick stick out. The original idea was for the song to be a long song with the general idea of building a ton of texture and sounds.
Guitarist Mike Rathfon: We wanted to change it up and do something really fresh. We laid it down with some simple electronic drums which Cody wrote up and ended up liking the simple drum part so much that it stuck through much of the song. The big idea for the second part of the song, was intensity. By the time the song ends, it's going through a huge, intense ride with a good deal of extra instrumentation (organ, piano, many guitars, lots of bass layers, female vocals), which is something we like to do because it can make a song a lot more powerful and moving.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
