Track By Tracks: Prey Drive - Once More With Feeling (2018)

1. Tokyo:

Tokyo is about being in a certain state of despair, taking a step back from all the mess that surrounds you and trying to kick yourself into having a different approach - ‘So I’ll try to clean up my smile. Pull yourself together Brad’

It’s about hoping that you will maybe someday in-fact find ‘hope’ and everything will be ok in the end - ‘You said, that times a healer’

And to not let yourself slip down that slippery slope.. - ‘Stay strong’

2. Pancakes:

The style of writing I used for pancakes was to make the song almost seem tongue in cheek and silly to disguise the sheer heartbreak of the subject matter at hand. It’s about remembering a time that once was - ‘she used to wake me in the morning, she made pancakes for me’

And the point where it all changed  - ‘Your words cut like a knife’

And how seeing that person everyday still hurts - ‘seeing your face is getting harder to take. Your eyes are open wide. They remind me of better days. ‘

At the end I reference the singer from Weezer- ‘Like Rivers once said, you’ve left me undone, like Rivers said I’ve come undone.’

The Sweater Song is one of my all time favourite songs and a huge inspiration for this song in which he sings about a thread from a sweater as a metaphor for his heart coming undone. I wanted to do something similar with pancakes...

3. Foxes:

Foxes was theoretically the first song we ever wrote and recorded as Prey Drive. But when we were forming the band and writing the first e.p. we felt the demo didn’t feel right at the time. When it came to writing our first full length, we had developed and progressed slightly in sound and a lot of the songs had a more poppy, punky, hopeful edge to them. (Contrast to the dark brooding first e.p.) So we decided to revisit foxes which was reworked and rewritten.

The song itself is about when life throws obstacles in your path that you had no idea were coming and trying to stay on your feet by metaphorically sweeping them under the carpet. ‘As life takes a dive, you trip and stumble over it all. And we sweep it all underneath’

It’s about looking back fondly at memories of your youth but having a distorted memory (rose tinted glasses) of how things were by blocking out the negative bits thinking things were way better than they were. ‘Remember us better than we were, better we are, better than I could be!’

It’s about having the purest optimistic outlook as a child.. ‘We’d set the world alight and on fire’ …only to realise life is not what you thought it would be or had planned out as you grow older. ‘If we only had the time and patience for it all’

The line Steve sings ‘can you hear the foxes creeping in the garden, can you hear the ghosts calling through the walls’ is about all the regrets and skeletons in your closet that weigh on your mind and rest on your shoulders when you lay awake at night. The smallest of noises seeming so loud that you can’t sleep no matter how hard you try and ignore them. 

4. Sugar High:

Is a reference to my favourite film ‘Empire Records’, in which the song they play at the end of the movie is called ‘Sugar High’. I just felt the song was so simple and had such a youthful hopeful vibe reminiscent of the 90’s feel of the film.

‘I wanna go where the light goes, I wanna be where the sun glows’ - is about staying focussed on the good and happiness I found during a dark time of my life.

5. Sunday Best:

Was an old song I wrote when I was diagnosed with ‘Crohns’ disease. We decided to completely re work it with sythns. Its a really dark but beautiful song. The lyrics are about when your body starts to give up on you and break down even though you have all the willingness in the world to do certain things that you no longer able to do. ‘Ive still got young blood but it won’t last because my body will eventually fall apart, so use it well’

My favourite part of the song is when the duel vocals (main vocal and counter melody) intertwine with each other

It tackles the loss of a loved one, and growing old without them.

6. Death Breath:

Is an angsty tune about finally letting go of people that are no good for you to have around or in your life.

‘I started a fire but I couldn’t put it out’ Is about making a complete mess of a situation and having no-one to fall back on. ‘Things seemed clear upside down, I needed someone and no-one was found’

Its probably the most explicit song on the record but I didn’t want to hold back or have any boundries when writing the lyrics to it.

7. Empty Orchestra:

Is a personal underdog favourite of mine. It was the last song that was finished on the album and it was mainly because I didn’t know what to do with it at all in terms of structure. It wasn’t until I went away to the middle of nowhere with no distractions that I wrote it in about 30 mins. When we recorded it everything just clicked and fell into place. It has my favourite chorus lyrics - ‘I missed holding your heart, I watched the hope in your eyes die, I’m not afraid of the dark but I’m not the one, I’m not the one.’ That whole section is about realising that two people are not good for each other anymore, seeing the hope in their eyes disappear and it breaking your heart because you don’t want to cause them pain anymore. Not being bitter about it, being honest and true to yourself, knowing they will be happier without you. Its a hard pill to swallow every time I hear/sing it.

8. Star Wars boy:

Is about online dating. How two people just are not compatible for each other no matter how hard you try and force the matter or desperately want it to be that easy, there’s just nothing there. No connection. No spark. Trying to hide who you are, hide your skeletons. In the end It just boils down to forgetting who you are and your worries...

9. Night rainbow:

Through all the crap, All the shit. When times are at its darkest. No matter how dark it gets. How hard it is to get up in the morning. Focus on that little tiny bit of light. The little bit of light you never thought you’d see. Let that light in...and let everything else go. Its about trying to manage depression, not eradicate it.

10. Once More With Feeling:

Is about parting ways with someone you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with. Its about building a life with that person only for it to not work out and letting that person walk out of your life forever… ‘We built a house, and we made a home’ Its about realising that you are no longer good for each others well being and that you both were just restricted versions of yourself - ‘I was a horse trapped in a stable, you were a bird unable to fly or sore through the sky’ When you could be so much more and blossom alone... -

‘Im a fucking unicorn!’