Singled Out: Autumn Hour
05/13/2009
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(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Justin Jurman from Autumn Hour tells us about the title track from their brand new album "Dethroned". We now turn it over to Justin for the story:
The song I'm thinking of is actually the title track off our debut record "Dethroned." The record itself is a conceptual narration loosely based around the writings of Futurist / Technologist Ray Kurzweil in his ground breaking book "The Singularity Is Near." I had read this book several years ago and was ecstatic that the band was interested in taking on such a heady topic as a theme to our record. To get myself back into the head space of the concept, I actually read the book a second time while writing material. That is one of the reasons there is such resonance between our concept, the music, and the lyrics.
The intro / verse riff came to me very quickly while writing. To me, the opening riff is a seminal sound and feel for the band. For some reason, it touches people that are fans of any genre of music. When I played our record for a world-renowned jazz guitarist, he singled this song out as a favorite because of the tempo, groove, and key changes. I never get tired of how our vocalist Alan Tecchio approaches these verses. The melody is so powerful and evenly matches the virility of the verse riff itself.
When I write and want to create an interesting mood or dramatic change, I think of writing songs within songs. Technically, as a player and producer, I like to get into nesting parts on a macro level by creating several different tracks that add to the feel of a given part. The chorus section is a good example of that, and what I find most interesting is that although the second chorus is in the same key as the first and third, we bring the dynamics down way low. The bass line during the chorus section really pulls all these nested parts together. Our bassist Clint Arent approached the chorus with the perfect melodic line that is really just so tasteful.
That sets the stage for the enormity of the breakdown / guitar solo section that follows. I'm very proud of the energy in the solo section. Our drummer Dave Lescinsky gets into some very intricate, fractured and technical parts for the first half and then just opens the tune up into a straight-out rocker. Oddly enough, portions of the solo were recorded in my home studio utilizing Pro Tools. I brought the session files to our engineer and he was then able to manipulate them within the tracks on his Pro Tools system.
Lastly, if you listen to the outro section there is heavy breathing in the background that is in synch with the tempo. It sounds like a person running� That adds to the drama of the song and a listener might not realize what it is that they are hearing on the first spin.
I personally love records that offer something new on each listen and I certainly hope our fans will feel that way about "Dethroned." The song can be heard at - www.myspace.com/autumnhour.
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