This is the first song that I wrote for this project and it was certainly the most challenging to complete. Sometime in the latter half of 2014, I thought that it was time for me to branch out from other artists' projects and create something of my own from the ground up. I decided to avoid limiting myself to strict guidelines or a specific genre on the EP, but I knew that I wanted one of the songs to feel cinematic with a handful of twists and turns; something along the lines of "Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding", which is absolutely one of my favorite songs (hey, no pressure...).

It started smoothly enough: the intro came together all at once. The first riff after the intro came from a voice memo I recorded on my phone 5 months earlier and I was thrilled to have found a use for it. I wish I could say what followed was easy and pleasant, but it was about a month of me racking my brain to see where each riff should lead. Every night, I'd spend a few quiet minutes on my patio to try hearing what was next. It brought on a lot of frustration, but the nights when I clearly heard an answer really made all of those headaches worth it.

Once all of the music was in place and I had built up a demo at home, I started writing lyrics. I liked the idea of an ambitious song like this having lyrics that felt poetic and somewhat familiar; I'm fairly confident that people have been writing about sh*tty things happening at sea for quite a while. Crashing waves and stormy skies aside, there are two approaches I took to writing these words: macro (global issues affecting all of us) and micro (a relationship of some kind gone sour). I wasn't sure which approach I liked better, so I decided to keep it ambiguous and let listeners develop their own interpretations.

I had some great friends on board to help bring that original demo to life and make it even better: my producer, Brad Cox (who also played bass and keys), drummer Rodney Beaubouef, and vocalist Braxton O'Neal. I listen back now, and instead of hearing any walls I hit when writing it, I hear all of the ideas that made me so excited to put this song (and this entire project) together.