This song came out of a title that a co-writer friend of mine, Kent Scofield and I had been toying with off and on for a few months while KIX was working on demos for the new record. I don't always start writing a song with a title but somehow this one sort of started out that way. We emailed and texted back and forth with different iterations of a title and whatever thin rock and roll plot we could gain a little lyrical inspiration from. We just decided to get together one day to write this song and work on the bridge to another song we were working on, I think we got excited about "Top Down" and have not revisited the other song yet. Anyhow Kent had a guitar riff that we worked on and turned it into the main riff of the song. I pulled the drumbeat together and programmed it. I tried several and I wanted to make sure that the beat lent some sense of urgency and attitude to the main riff which we were pretty sure would be the chorus as well so that's how the drum part ended up being snare-centric. We put the intro together with the single kick beat, we knew that was a strong part. I came up with the verse guitar parts and the chorus endings that worked with the skeleton title we had. We knew the last line of the chorus would be "Love Me With Your Top Down" so I came up with something that led into the riff that you hear under the title. We didn't have a bridge idea so I came up with the basic chord progression and we didn't do much else with it at that point other than just knowing it was the bridge placeholder and guitar solo. We used the very first thing I played for that part and put a different beat under it for some contrast. Kent put a blistering guitar solo down just for fun and we called it a day. Thanks to modern technology, we didn't get to actually see each other again to finish the song, we basically finished the lyrics over email. I'm the kind of songwriter where I need some time alone with a song I'm working on with another writer to allow my own ideas to become clearer and actually sort them out to see what works best.

Having the arrangement solid, the drumbeat down, we started batting around lyrics over email. Kent had a couple of rhyme pairs that sounded like a good start and we talked about how the song could be about a convertible car. But realistically we talked about how great it was back in the day when girls used to wear tube tops in the summer. And more specifically what a great moment it always was to just pop a tube top straight down to reveal the glory of the female form on your way to more interesting activities. Talk about a gateway drug! So we worked the lyrics to play both sides of the coin, tube top and convertible top. Either way, both are enjoyed best in the down position.

I took what we thought were the final lyrics for the verses and choruses and sang all the melodies on the fly, it really came together quite naturally and I remember really thinking hard about making sure I sang stuff that was right in Steve's wheelhouse. I was definitely thinking of him and his vocal attitude the whole time. Not that I can execute anywhere near the way he can, but the inspiration for the style was there. He really liked it and sang what I meant to sing! The real difficult part for me was the "get in my back seat and�" it was too high for me to sing in anything but falsetto but I knew it would be a great moment for Steve in the chorus. Some of the lyrics didn't fit with some of the melodic rhythmic motives I was gravitating towards so I reworked a few lyrics on the fly. I like the way the lyrics came out, clever, not too obscene depending on the listener perspective, and just the right flavor for a summer rock song.

Being pretty happy with everything so far I decided to send what we had to our producer Taylor Rhodes to see if he had an idea to make the bridge better. He's also the kind of songwriter that needs some alone time with a song! He loved the song right away and so he came up with a different feel with the slides for the bridge chord progression we had, plus the whole Rosie lyrical tie-in, which I thought was brilliant. He made the whole bridge section just work. He also put the whoa-whoas in the choruses and in the intro, and who doesn't love whoa-whoas! Taylor really put a ton of frosting on the cake for this song. Funny thing is he actually thought I played the guitar solo on it and he came up with the thematic solo you hear Ronnie tearing up on the final version. It really was a much better fit. Taylor has such a great sense of overall feel for a song. I remember when we were putting the main riff together and writing the intro, I knew it was a perfect song for Ronnie and his Les Paul and that's exactly what the song ended up being, a great showcase for Ronnie's unique sound and terrific guitar playing. When you talk about truly great rhythm players, Ronnie Younkins and Pete Townshend absolutely belong in the same sentence!

I don't think we made changes when the band recorded it in the studio. It's pretty much what was on the demo. The label had been talking about making the title track the first single, but I think after they heard the final version of "Top Down" and after the radio people heard it and raved about it, they thought it was a no-brainer first single for the record. It was a pretty good song to start with but with Ronnie, Brian, Jimmy and Steve all putting their unique stamp on it, they turned it into a truly great KIX song that we are all pretty proud of. I wish we could still do music videos and they were still important like they were in the old days - so many visual possibilities with this track!