Track By Tracks: Why Everyone Left - This Is Not A Test (2018)

Modena’s Pop-Punk Crew Why Everyone Left recently released the lively video for single ‘Bouch’ here. Continuing their trend of DIY-ing it, frontman Enzo was responsible for directing, with the addition of drawn elements from artist Luca Zetti. Enzo commented: “I wanted the visuals to match perfectly with the song, so not the usual playback stuff... it kinda looks more like a hip-hop video!” ‘Bouch’ is the first track to be taken from upcoming EP ‘This Is Not A Test’, which will be released on 2 nd November. For the EP, the band was determined to be very hands-on, with Enzo producing and recording all bar the drums himself and Seb Barlow (Neck Deep, WSTR, As It Is) at Celestial Productions handling mixing duties. The resultant 5-tracker sees the band declaring: “I think we finally found our way with this EP. The previous ones were too heterogeneous, this time there's a connection from start to finish.” Taking influence from the likes of State Champs, Four Year Strong and A Day To Remember, ‘This Is Not A Test’ sounds like long summers spent drinking with your friends, delivering big, bouncy riffs and infectious vocal hooks. Now Enzo is here to give us an insight into what to expect from the record...

1. Pick You Up: 

"Nothing but an angry fast pop punk song. The perfect way to start a record. I love how punchy and powerful this song is, old fans will definitely feel the connection between this and older songs like "The Only Promise" and "Ten Thousand Times". Even though you can tell we went more poppy on this record, it was important to me to still keep this punk rock vibe, it's where we come from, and it will always be a part of us. The guitar riff at the beginning is one of our hardest ones to play, fuckin’ hard to record it - too fast!"

2. Stand By:

"Probably my favourite song of the EP. You can definitely hear a strong State Champs influence in it. I was really into them [State Champs] when I started to write this song; I love the way Derek sings, I love how fast he can sing on rock tracks, I think it's pretty unique in the Pop Punk scene today. This is the first and only song of the EP we already played live, we played it first at a festival in July and the response was insane! I hate to play unreleased songs live cause people will just stare at you and that makes me so nervous. But with Stand By the crowd still partied! This is Seb Barlow's (Mixing engineer of ‘This Is Not A Test’ EP) favourite track too, he also sang some extra little backing vocals in the chorus."

3. Bouch:

"This is where everything started. Back in late 2016, the first song I wrote for the record, I just wanted to make something memorable; a song people would start to sing when they hear our band name. It kind of worked I think. That vocal theme at the beginning definitely helped. It was our first time putting a Hip Hop beat in a song, and I totally love it, we should do that more often.. lol! Funny story about this song, we were touring Europe in September 2016, we were in Austria and we were driving to Graz. At some point I realized I lost my phone. It was a shitty phone tbh, but it had the “Bouch” demos on it, so I had to find it! We drove back to all the services we stopped by on our way and at the last one we found it! That was crazy, we wasted something like three hours for that, but it was worth it in the end!”

4. Whiskey & Coke: 

"This is the last song we wrote for the EP. In fact, the record was done, but I felt it was missing the fun element, so I wrote this song and when the band first gave it a listen, they loved it, so we ended up replacing another track from the record and putting Whiskey & Coke in it’s place!

This song is just about getting drunk and falling in love at parties. In the last few years, it seems talking about having fun has become really non-trendy in Pop Punk; I miss that. Haven't we all grown up with all that American Pie stuff? The fast vocal part in the second verse is probably my favourite part, it's so weird!”

5. Dead Inside: 

"Since the "Been Home Enough" EP, I felt I needed to write songs where I could put all my saddest feelings about things I've been through, and also things I haven't. People can relate to that way more easily than to other feelings. I just wanted to write something that could help them in their hardest times. I loved how our fans reacted to "Longs Night And Drives" back then, and still, some of them got tattoos of “Still Golden”. That really made me realize how these songs can be important and helpful. We literally spent months on the riff at the beginning, couldn't find the perfect one, we did right before sending it to be mixed."