(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today vocalist Mike Stacy and guitarist Johnny Peralta from hard rockers Edgewise tell us about "Slave" one of the songs featured in the Sponsored Songs giveaway of songs from a 1001 bands! We now turn it over to them for the story:Vocalist Mike Stacy: "Slave was really a song that re-defined the sound of our music. Johnny and I had been playing together since 2001 in a band called Subtitle. I don't know if there was an ex out there somewhere with a voodoo doll or just karma but Subtitle was a cursed band. We must have gone through half a dozen drummers, a handful or bass players, and a second guitarist over a five year period. Then just when things were rolling I managed to fall off a fence and take a concrete post in the throat. I lost my voice for a month and I couldn't sing for almost a year. Once again our band fell apart in that time. Amazingly, Johnny never gave up on the fact that I was his singer and I would be back and sure enough about 9 months later we were writing again. Slave came out of those first sessions and it really was the defining song of our sound in Edgewise.
The song itself is about being a Slave to the technology of our world. A lot of people think it's a relationship song but this one isn't meant to be. It's about how technology connects us in more ways than ever and yet I think we all feel somehow more alone and isolated than in the past. People would rather poke you on Facebook or send you a text than drop by and talk. We're all slaves to our cell phones, the Internet, and the next new thing that we have to buy. The song's aggression comes from being pissed off about it all. The lyrics reflect the frustration of being tied to cell phones and PDAs and wanting to throw it out the window but being unable to because everyone else is also tied to them. You simply couldn't function in our world without technology anymore. If you listen to the lyrics with this in mind you will come away with a different impression of the song. Things like the line "Come to me, to come undone" is saying let's interact like humans again and undo ourselves from this web of technology or in the bridge "See I belong, it's wasted" we're saying yea you are connected and in touch with everyone but you're sitting at your computer alone aren't you."
Guitarist Johnny Peralta: "The song is basically about being a slave to technology. Every time a person's cell phone rings, guaranteed there are at least 20 people around that person who reach for their cell phones. People can't leave the house without them.
It's funny, we recorded Slave a couple years ago but never really released it until this year. Now that we have it's causing a bit of a stir for us. The song was selected for the Sponsored Songs program, made possible by Microsoft Windows, and has been downloaded over 1000 times now for free. We've also been asked to do a music video for the track which is currently in the works."
For anyone who would like to download Slave for free you can find it here
Visit Edgewise at - http://www.edgewise.ca
