Hello again! It is raining outside and it is absolutely wonderful.
Before I bring my teapot filled with freshly brewed Japanese cherry tea out on the soaked lawn, I thought it was time for another Q&A. This time on “The Asylum”
For your amusement, and ours.

What is the story of the song?
Matt: This is a story of a house or rather an Asylum. It’s about a person who spent time there, either going insane or was insane before he or she got there.

Jade: Visually, I imagine an old house a couple of centuries ago where the staff treated ill people who really needed help, like subjects, using very unconventional and cruel methods.

There are a lot of growl vocals in the song, how is that?
Matt: The tension that growl gives is just awesome, and that’s from the growler. But to be serious, I think that growl is a really mean way of singing and the means it’s used to express your feeling from inside makes it all bubbly and guttural on the way out.

Jade: I feel that this is a bit off topic now, but when you have both growl and female vocals, the possibilities are endless. And we don’t want to get stuck with me coming off as… well… gentle, kind and angelic while Matt always comes off as the evil monster in the shadows just because of how we sing. We are more than the voices that first rip or caress your earlobes, haha.

What is the best part focused on lyrics and vocals in “The Asylum”?
Jade: My favourite part is right before the solo when I sing about how afraid and mistreated this person is. It comes very natural to come across as scared and weary when singing high notes that way.

Matt: The content of the song itself, otherwise it wouldn’t be a story like song. I like the part when everyone goes HEY! And the parts after that, through Jades favourite part until the chorus come back on.

If you would describe “The Asylum” based on emotions, which emotions would you then describe it with?
Jade: The basic emotion for this song is loneliness and the fear and melancholy that come with it.
Matt: Jade nailed it, but I’d like to add insanity to the mixture.

Jade: Oh yes. Can’t have an asylum without a little insanity, now can we?

This is serious business?
Jade: Well… We don’t take ourselves very seriously. You need some humor even if the topic is grim. The basic emotion is very serious no doubt, but we like to dress things up with humor or overly dramatic pretentiousness so that it comes off humorous anyway.

The lyrics for:

The Asylum

First you see the iron gates,
rusted hinges wail.
Underneath a gloomy sky,
thus begins the tale.

Open doors
open your mind
open up your eyes

Enter gates,
enter the house,
enter wards of pain

Peering into darkness,
and the darkness stares back
wherever you are, whatever you see

Whisper into shadows,
and it will shout back
wherever you are, whatever you see

Even in the airing courts,
birds don’t ever sing.
Underneath a gloomy sky,
all with broken wings.

Close the doors
closing the soul
closing up the grave

Shut your eyes
shut your mind
shut your way of life

Hey!

Mad, mad, madness

So pale and weak
from loss of blood
from icy baths
from therapy

I'm bruised and scarred
alone and scared
so long confined
within my mind

So then, what are we up to at the moment?
You will know next time. It's crazy!

-Jade

Hello again!

Here is the quick Q&A I promised on the songs. Starting with “Beware of Zombies!”

Who wrote the music in Beware of Zombies!?
Matt: This was basically made as a tribute and cheer up song to Jade, when she had ended a 3 year long relationship. Me and Alex thought that she might like a whole new song containing flesh eating ghouls! So we created the frame for “Beware of Zombies!”.

Would you say that “Beware of Zombies!” is catchy?
Matt: Yeah, the song is created to be light, fun and catchy!
Jade: It’s one of those songs that you will hear once and then you will never get it out of your head. I’m serious. Never. You will remember it FOREVER. It will haunt you, so you’d better just like it right away, you don’t have a choice, haha.

Would you say that the music and lyrics is well put together ?
Matt: yes, I think so. It’s made to be catchy and catch peoples ears and attention.
Jade: I think that it is quite unexpected that the song is about zombies. I doesn’t really sound like a song containing zombies, and that’s why I like it.

How did you end up with the idea of writing lyrics about Zombies?
Jade: Well, I have been fascinated with zombies for quite some time now and everyone in the band knew that I wanted to write about them eventually. And when I had a breakup in my relationship, Matt and Alex decided to cheer me up by writing a really energetic song about zombies.

Is there a hidden message in the lyrics?
Jade: Yes, all of our songs can be stripped down to a very simple skeleton. All of our songs are based on a very basic emotion that everyone probably has felt at some point. Even I we dress the song up with zombies, mental illness, fairytales and history, it is still based on that simple emotion.
“Beware of Zombies!” is basically about being afraid to die, that the world will end and everything will end. Fear of death and the apocalypse.

Why are the context of the lyrics so focused on gore and violence?
Jade: In this particular song the gore and violence enhances the sense of fear, fear for a violent and painful death. I can’t imagine being devoured by a zombie a quick and relatively painfree death, being eaten alive…
And sometimes one has to use harsh words to really tear a feeling out of the listener.

Was there a main writer of the lyrics of Beware of Zombies?
Jade: Not really. Me and Matt had agreed on the subject and structure of the lyrics and so he wrote the verses and sent them to me. Then I got really excited and inspired and wrote the choruses. This was pretty much 50-50 song.

The Lyrics to:

Beware of Zombies!

You better hush in the night,
and embrace the silence now.
Better pray for your life,
cause they will chase you down.

You better run, better hide,
better run for your life now.
Better pray to your god,
cause they will hunt you down.

We'll, find your hiding place,
we will search you down.
We can smell the taste of flesh
to guide us where you hide.
Find your secret place,
no one is ever safe.
We can’t sate these urgent,
sudden cravings for your brains!

Clasp that last bullet,
and pray for daylight.
Crouch low in an alley,
and wait for dawn.
Clutch your gun real tight,
think of survival.
Focus on the sunlight,
we'll make it through.

Rip and tear your skin,
separate your limbs.
Drooling zombies on the warpath,
hunting for our food.
Graveyard calling me,
gonna send us back again.
Doesn’t matter if you scream and cry,
you’re gonna die!


There you are.
More soon!