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Singled Out: Unleash The Archers' Tonight We Ride

07/09/2015
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Today Unleash The Archers vocalist Brittney Slayes tells us about their song "Tonight We Ride" (and the Mad Max themed video) which comes from their brand new album "Time Stands Still." Here is the story:

The first single 'Tonight We Ride' from our newest album Time Stands Still was actually the first track we wrote for the record, and it was written about a year before all of the other tracks. We recorded a demo of the song back in 2013 to use to shop to labels, and once we got some interest we were going to continue finishing the rest of the record. In the summer of 2013 we were given the amazing opportunity to work with the very talented director Nathan 'Karma' Cox for our next music video, so seeing as we didn't want to let the chance go to waste and had only written one song so far, 'Tonight We Ride' became our first single by default. We all caravanned down to the desert in the middle of Nevada and with the help of Nathan's friends from Death Guild Thunderdome, we filmed a super rad Mad Max themed music video. The members of DGTD set up an actual thunderdome at Burning Man every year and bring these vehicles called art cars down with them, so Nathan thought it would be cool to have us riding them seeing as the song was called Tonight We Ride. Everything went well and we returned home with a very positive outlook on the future of things to come for UTA.

Then everything changed. We lost two members before the leaves were off the trees, one of which was our main songwriter and a big part of why we sound the way we do. The three that were left, (Grant, Scott and myself) were at a bit of a standstill. I can't say we didn't see it coming because we could see that Brayden was unhappy, he had struggled to find the motivation to write for some time and TWR (as we call it) was actually all Grant's riffage except for the tap solo. Regardless of this we had thought that Brayden had at least one more album in him, but here we were with the first single done and the video complete and no hope for a record to go with it.

That winter was hard. We pushed on and continued to write, but things were slow going. The future looked bleak to say the least. Then suddenly, with the new year came a new face and a rejuvenated ambition. Andrew had songs that he had never used stored in the back of his brain that he handed over without qualm. He let us rip them apart and re-write bits here and there and together the four of us wrote all the rest of the tracks on the album. We filmed a second music video that summer, but in the end still agreed to release TWR as the first single. It meant a lot to us, and Brayden had dedicated so much time and energy to UTA that we couldn't let this final contribution be put on a shelf to gather dust. We were also so stoked with all of Nathan's hard work that we knew we couldn't waste what he had done. As fate would have it, the release of Mad Max: Fury Road somehow coincided perfectly with the release of the single, and fans were really in a Mad Max frame of mind so I think that helped us big time as well.

The song is about the anticipation you feel the night before going out on tour; it's about not being able to sleep due to the excitement, and the rush to get out on the road and just drive. The song itself mimics that sense of urgency well I think, and personally, I am pretty sure that no matter what it would have ended up being the song we picked as the first single anyways ;) Pretty sure that's how fate works�

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and watch the video here and learn more about the album right here!

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