Lese Majesty vocalist Jodie Lee Gibson tells us about their song 'Seeking Escape' which comes from their recently released EP "Cold Reason For Change". Here is the story:
Close friends and family of the band have struggled with addiction over the last few years. I feel like this is a common theme for many of us, and there's already plenty of songs focussed on this topic. But it felt like everyone was taking the approach of condemning the addicted, or placing ultimatums on them.
So with this one I decided to shift the perspective. One of my best friends told me to read an epic book called 'Chasing The Scream' by Johann Hari which helped me navigate some kind of understanding of this heated topic.
If you don't dig books there's a great five minute cartoon documentary online by the clever folk who do 'in a nutshell'. I had a hunch the current war on drugs stunk, but I didn't think it was quite this rife. Hari's research and story blew my mind, so there's reflections of the book throughout this song.
This song was written around vocals - but not initially. After finishing the demo we realised the music didn't complement the raw urgency of the singing. So we deleted everything except my voice and rebuilt the song again from scratch.
We hoped it would improve things by making the groove gallop along like an aggressive version of Americas' 'Horse With No Name' but because we had no drummer at the time, our bass player Joel was programming the drums with midi. He did this weird thing where he wanted to add triplet drum fills, but the midi grid lines in 4/4 timing was problematic, so he changed the meter to a 6/8 swing groove and rebuilt the song from there.
We hope that the content and music complement each other to convey the feeling and message. We realised that growing up we were more likely to listen to the ideas and concepts of our favourite singers or bands rather than the points of view given to us from traditional forms of authority. Such charged, passionate and positive messages have resonated with us through artists such as Midnight Oil, Cog, Dead Letter Circus, Pink Floyd, Rage Against The Machine, U2, and Kendrick Lamar. If we can get close to delivering stories with some heart, connecting with people and even spark a positive idea, then that will be success for us.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album right here!
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