Paper Rival's highly anticipated debut, "Dialog" hits stores this week. The band's rootsy indie rock has been winning them fans and critical praise and caught our attention, so we asked frontman Jacob Rolleston to tell us a little about his favorite tracks from the new CD. Here is Jacob:"Cassandra" - This song is actually about my constant negativity and unwillingness to stay in one place. Most people think it's about a girl but "Cassandra" is actually the name of a naysayer or prophet of doom in a lot of old Greek and roman folklore. The recording process for this was a lot different because none of us thought it would make the record right up until it was completely recorded.
"Weak Sister" - A song that our bass player had a huge part in. We wanted something on the record that felt like the older fat brother of the other songs. I know that sounds funny with the title but this song for me, since it's at the end feels like the end-all / be-all of the record and I'm ok with that. Lyrically the song is about waiting for something bad to happen to someone you care about before you start celebrating that person's life.
"Bluebird" - As a band, we don't write music for shock value and a lot of people that I've told this story to at interviews have sensationalized it. The song is about a friend of mine who murdered his parents. The song doesn't go in to gory detail and I won't either. But, the point of the song is for someone to hear it, not knowing what it's about, then relate to it, then when they find out it's about someone who did such a horrible thing, they have related to the story already and maybe feel the way I do about him. He's still a friend and I still love the guy.
"Swimmer King" - This one came together very quickly. Patrick had the music written for almost the entire song and the lyrics were really easy because I had something in mind that I knew would work great with the pace of the song. The harmonies in the bridge are my favorite part of this one for sure.
"The Kettle Black" - No one can tell me that I wrote bad lyrics on this one. I've had a few people tell me that the lyrics are cheesy but I didn't write 95% of them, my great-grandfather did. The words are almost all taken from letters that he wrote his wife while serving in WWII. I was reading the letters and was thinking that a lot of the problems that he had in his life in the 40's, I'm having in my life today. Not with women necessarily. More with a desire for constant change and always being on edge.
Grab the CD at the link below and check out their official site link for streams off all of these tracks plus tour dates. Congrats to Paper Rival on an amazing debut!
