Singled Out: Frontline's Keep It A Secret

Keavin Wiggins | 10-04-2022

Frontline Album cover art

Album cover art

Dutch hard rockers Frontline just released their debut album: "Scream All You Want" and to celebrate we asked Arti Flinkerbusch to tell us about the song "Keep It A Secret". Here is the story:

Most of the songs I write have dark and cynical themes, but this song is an exception. When I was writing it, I was listening to Ted Nugent's first album, which has a feisty, exciting track on it called "Queen of the Forest". I wanted to capture a similar kind of vibe, and first wrote the music for what ultimately became "Keep it a secret". By then I could already tell that it would revolve around a catchy chorus telling the audience something exciting.

The lyrics were ultimately inspired by a scenario like what you see in the 90's slasher film "I Know What You Did Last Summer", where a group of teenagers driving under the influence accidentally run someone over, and want to keep it a secret by disposing of the body. I hadn't actually seen the film when I was writing the song (since then I have), I'd only heard about its plot. You can still see its influence back in the cover art of our 2020 lo-fi EP "Accidental Gathering". The lyrics don't specifically discuss a car accident, but could be applied to anything scandalous done by a group of people, which better not see the light of day. Which is a scenario anyone can relate to.

After presenting it to the band, our singer Thomas changed the vocal melody and made it sound more authentic: more like someone who's really proposing to cover something up. Our drummer Jamal started playing triple sixteenth notes on the hi-hat during the choruses, which increased the suspense, and Steven added some killer bass lines. Then, there was a period of 3 months during which I left the band to go travelling, and Thijs, our rhythm guitarist, had to perform the solos when playing live. When I got back, we both agreed that he did a better job doing the solo on "Keep it a secret" and ended up doing so on the recording. I'm good at writing solos with complex, long-winded melodies, but if you need a solo to sound feisty, exciting & spontaneous, you need Thijs. "Keep it a secret" was first recorded lo-fi for our EP, and now its re-recorded & final version is presented on our debut album "Scream all you want".

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album here.