Behind The Tracks: ALBORN - Cause To Create (2021)

1. How was the song recorded and produced?

We recorded "Cause To Create" at Instamix Headquarters in Geneseo, IL. The song was co-produced by Jose Urquiza of 3 Years Hollow (Engineer, Co-Writer) and Morgan Rose (Co-Writer) of Sevendust. We have been working almost exclusively with this team since mid-2017. The song was recorded over 2 days, roughly 8-10 hour sessions each day. Scratch guitar track always comes first to give us something to lay drums to. After the drums come guitar and bass, sometimes revisiting certain drum parts to line up better. The vocals usually don't start until we have the majority of the music complete, but are always coming up with ideas as the music moves along so that part usually goes by pretty swiftly. After all the tracks are laid, we basically just fine-tune, fix any sloppy parts, and then turn it loose to Jose to edit and mix (or reference mix if we plan on sending the song to another mixer). Once all the work was finished on our end, we sent it off to James "Fluff" Harley to be mixed. The final touch is the mastering, which was done by Vlado Meller.

2. What the song is about?

"Cause To Create" is about a product of your creation, but throughout this creation you have been forced or overwhelmed to follow a certain set of rules or standards set by someone or something else in the past, causing you to sort of lose focus on what you want said product to be. One of our primary goals as a band is to maintain our authenticity and our own thought processes, and that highly reflects how we compose our music.

3. How the song was written?

We actually already had a rough draft of this song already stored from months past that came from a live-streamed songwriting session that we did with the content production company called Instamix. We did that session in about 2 and a half hours (way less time than we ever spend putting together a tune), but decided that it just had too many things that we liked about it to not do anything with. So we pulled it up, tore the whole thing apart, and redesigned it to our liking. Many things changed, but the majority of the base riffs are very similar if not the same. Maybe someday that demo version will make it out for fans to compare haha.

4. What does the song mean to you?

Being as this is our newest song we've put out, it's still got that feeling of being our baby. We're honestly just super excited to have been able to put out a piece of new content for our people to enjoy in this stand-still of the music industry while the world battles COVID. We've done tons and tons of writing during this downtime that has helped us discover what we truly want our sound to be, and the meaning of this song reflects as a reminder for what we stand for in the sense of maintaining integrity and being ourselves in our music.

5. Any other cool or funny stories you have regarding the song?

One of our favorite bands/influences that we've looked up to forever is Mudvayne. During the recording process of this song, we were tossing the idea around of someday having a featured vocalist in one of our songs. Morgan said he knew somebody that might work. He pulled out his phone, dialed, put it on speaker, and held it out in the center of the room. Who answered? Chad Gray, the lead vocalist of Mudvayne.