(antiMusic) August Burns Red's new album, Constellations hits stores this week. To celebrate the release we asked JB Brubaker and Matt Greiner to pick some of their favorite tracks from the album and tell us the stories behind the songs. They more than came through! Here is today's song "Meddler": JB Brubaker "Meddler" is one of the most upbeat happy sounding songs we've ever written. There is a huge lead section in the middle that is rather triumphant sounding. This song is easily my hardest song on guitar. I think I am play straight up lead parts for about 90 seconds straight and I think they're all kind of hard.
The last breakdown in this song is one of the weirdest rhythms we've ever written, though it certainly doesn't sound that way. The breakdown beat is in 6/8 but there are 3 chords that accompany the melody that comes in over top of the rhythm. Those chords are in 4/4 so the chords cycle through the 6/8 rhythm in a very irregular pattern that we simply had to memorize. It took me a good hour to understand where the chords changed and probably another hour to get it into my muscle memory. Maybe I'm just a slow learner.
Matt Greiner Jake and I collaborated on the lyrics and vocal patterns for Meddler. Initially I didn't have lyrics written for the triumphant sounding lead halfway through the song. Jake thought it would be cool to have the lyrics parallel the music and take a positive turn. We came up with "Everyone together, we will strengthen ourselves," which at first sounded generic to me. However, after tracking the part and screaming gang vocals on the word "together," the part really came together for me.
Meddler is easily one of my favorite songs to play. I experimented with some tom/snare stuff during the beginning of the first breakdown and I think it translates well and intensifies the part. In my opinion, this song is Jake's best vocal performance on the record.
Learn more about the band, preview tracks from the album and more - right here!
