Singled Out: Moxy The Band's The Cost

Keavin Wiggins | 11-16-2022

Photo courtesy Big Picture Media

80s-esque indie pop trio Moxy The Band just released their new album, Dream Feeling, and to celebrate we asked Amber DeLaRosa to tell us about one of the tracks, and she picked "The Cost". Here is the story:

It's funny that "The Cost" has resonated with people so much when the lyrics sprang from a place of feeling so alone in my experience. I remember writing it wondering if the lyrics would make sense to anyone but me, or if the song itself would even see the light of day. Tackling this song coincided with some events I couldn't have possibly predicted. Just prior to the start of the pandemic, I slipped and fell in the shower suffering a massive Grand mal seizure. Doctors fought to control the seizures but they persisted. I started the heavy writing process of this song just as I started heavy anti-convulsants. Due to my physical condition my drivers license was revoked, as was my sense of normalcy or autonomy. I felt all the pain of my youth had caught up to me in such an undeniable physical way.

I had also just been dealt more devastating news - the child which my life revolved around (Moxy the girl) would unexpectedly be moving to Indonesia. I would no longer get to spend my days beside the 7 year old who was calling me "Nanny" as early as her first words.

News stations and media everywhere started ushering the panic and reality of the pandemic this same day, and I got a call from my best friend that she was now displaced in India due to the events. It felt like a deafening bomb went off and I could not see through the chaos. Rain poured and I scootered down the midtown streets alternating between stiffened lips and full sobs belting out lyrics. I probably looked like a maniac, and that's because I was. The medications I was on made everything seem even more like a blur, blaring at me from all directions.

Online, people were telling me that my story was inspiring them, I was finally reaching some sort of musical success but my personal life was crumbling. I felt this resentment that perhaps nobody understood that the music wasn't just coming from nowhere. It was coming from hard swallowed lessons, it was coming at a cost. One that I didn't even fully know yet. The lyrics served like a battle cry as I was literally and metaphorically lost on the same old streets I used to drive every day.

This song is for everyone who fights forces beyond their control and keeps going. Hand in hand, we keep going.

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