(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Matt Leff from U.S. hard rockers Machines Of Grace tells us about "Fly Away" from their self-titled debut. We now turn it over to Matt for the story:The song we've chosen to be Singled Out is called "Fly Away" and it's one of the titles from our debut CD, "Machines Of Grace", due out this summer. The framework for Fly Away was originally written by Zak Stevens and myself, before he joined Savatage. At the time, we were both attending Musicians Institute where we first met. After Zak and I graduated, we met drummer Jeff Plate and the three of us gigged around Boston for a couple years before they both joined Savatage. Jeff and I had discussed doing a record together a few times and when this band started coming to life, we were both thrilled that Zak was excited about joining us.
The first thing we did was get producer/engineer Paul David Hager on board because he's phenomenal and we knew we wanted a very modern sounding mix. The song was torn apart from top to bottom, new parts were written and we played around with alot of different sounds in an effort to make the song as fresh and interesting as possible. I personally think the bass guitar and drum sounds Paul got are awesome, plus he was able to create a really lush sounding mix while still keeping the track nice and heavy.
Drums were recorded in Ithaca NY with Alex Perialis, guitars were recorded in NH at Studio Metronome with Paul Hager, guitar and bass overdubs were done in Boston, Zak did his vocals in Tampa FL, the mix was done in Los Angeles on one of the largest mixing consoles I've ever seen and mastering was done at Sterling Sound in NYC. Certainly not the easiest way to do a record but we're all very happy with the end result!
The lyrics to "Fly Away" are about a woman who lived an unfortunate life. She experienced a scarred childhood which led to a tough existence and she basically just got a raw deal in life. She didn't get to enjoy any type of normalcy because she had one bad luck streak after another. In the end the main character of this song winds up losing her life to a disease that she didn't have the money or resources to fight. Unfortunately there are lots of people who are in this situation every day. They may be homeless or destitute and this has always been a problem in our society. Of course, now it seems worse than ever as the world economy has experienced this recent recession.
We've got a lot of potential singles on this record and feel there's something for everyone on it. From acoustic ballads, to melodic hard rock with really hooky choruses, to borderline progressive metal with an 80's twist, this record runs the gamut. it's been tough trying to choose which one we want everyone to hear first, but we've decided to go with "Fly away" and we hope everyone digs it as much as we do. Hopefully we'll be seeing some of you soon when Machines Of Grace hits the road!
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
