Singled Out: Smackbound's Close To Sober

Keavin Wiggins | 06-14-2020

Smackbound just released their debut album "20/20" and to celebrate we asked singer Netta Laurenne to tell us about the song "Close To Sober". Here is the story:

Close to Sober is one of the more epic sounding songs on 20/20. We wrote the song on a summer cabin with Vili & Tuomas from our band and we wanted to have big choirs and big dramatic emotion on the track. We wanted it to sound big in despair.

Later when I was writing lyrics to the album I saw a weird dream about a burning boat that I wasn't supposed to be in to begin with and this man appeared on the upper deck of that boat shouting down to me into the flames: "Forgetting to draw the line?" I suffer from serious insomnia but when I sleep I usually have very vivid dreams that I always remember afterwards. I get a lot of my lyrics straight from my dreams. So once I had woken up I still had that line in my head (and everything that happened in that dream) and it kinda made everything fell to its place. I do remember the dream vividly but the story is too raw for me still to be told out loud. The basic dilemma was that I had broken into that boat to not be seen by anyone. I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing and feeling. I wanted to have a safe hiding place. But as the boat got on fire...everyone gathered around the boat and could see me there. So I had no shelter. And then this guy just stated me the obvious that I didn't act the way I was supposed to while I was burning down with the boat with no help from anyone.

I knew then what Close to Sober should be about. It is about an inner struggle trying to get over someone or something. It's like you know something is bad for you but you just fail to draw the line...you just fail to save yourself from your self-destructive tendencies as you are really not ready and equipped to let go of something. So it tells about the struggle that happens midway in these kind of processes. Losing control on yourself and your emotions usually has a tendency to develop into self-hatred before you actually can work your way out of the "deeps" so to speak and regain your self-confidence and -love. So basically "Close to Sober" says: "Just give me a minute more to pull myself together and I promise to do better". Yet that minute turns into hours, days and months without any real change. And you know it's a lie even when you say it the first time. You're simply trying to win more time.

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