(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Hugh Morretta from The National Rifle tells us about "It's Just Whiskey, Mama" from their brand new EP "Man Full of Trouble". We now turn it over to Hugh for the story:"It's Just Whiskey, Mama" is one I like because of the super emotional vocals ... although it might seem a little emo, which is not cool. Haha. But it also has a weird euro trash sound because of the keys, and that rocks.
It started out with this open guitar thing played with a capo on the verse along with the chorus chords. Just a piece of something, which is how everything starts and usually ends up completely different like in this song.
The weird verse drums were inspired by a pulsing kraut rock sort of Faust thing and the chorus was a drum part from an old song that we retired.
Usually I'd do the bass next, but I found this really distorted club bass sound on the keyboard that I fell in love with and added that to what we had and used it to make a bridge.
The bass was a pain in the ass because we technically had a bass part already with the keyboards, so after thinking about it for a week I had Jeremiah (bass) just fuck around and do some floor tom accents and distorted noise stuff on the verses. The chorus bass was just a rhythm thing I felt when listening to the song demo.
The vocals were also just put together from singing with the demo and the lyrics are really, really personal. It's obviously about a relationship that went bad, which inspired a lot of songs on the EP, but I wanted to do this one from the other person's perspective. At first it was sympathizing with her, but I think it turned out a little mocking. It sucks, but I think it's a reflection of my changing perspective on the situation.
Add some lead stuff which I put together before recording and some help from Buddy (drums) in doing some verse backing vocal parts, and that's it.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
