Behind The Tracks: OUTATIME! - Husky Fight (Single) (2020)

Nikk: This song that I have been working on for over 7 years at this point. It was primarily brought about as a way to work through my depression and anxiety that I have been battling almost my entire life. I remember I started coming up with ideas while with sitting in my room and watching my two huskies run around play with each other. They would have these sparks of energy every so often and then be completely calm waiting for that next spike to hit. It inspired the speed and direction that I wanted to go with the song. That constant battle between being energetic and on that high while also feeling weighed down on the lows.

When I joined Outatime! I felt it was the right time to look into the song and open that chapter up again to really work out my inner struggles. I can definitely say it’s never easy opening up these issues but I started off writing down the lyrics to convey how i felt inside. I eventually brought the ideas to Mike (vocalist) and we started to work on the rest of the lyrics to help spread a bigger message. We wanted to make sure we let our listeners know they are never alone and that there is always some form of outlet to feel safe and understood while also having that support from everyone around them.

Justin: I remember when I first met Nikk a few years ago before we were in a band together and he played for me a rough demo of the track. I’ve always been a big fan of that classic pop punk where it’s fast and in your face, but I also love bands like Thrice and As Cities Burn who know how to tone down for those heavier hitting parts. I was immediately drawn to the instrumentals and wanted to get my hands into this as soon as I could. A few years later Nikk joined Outatime! and we didn’t really talk about Husky Fight! until January of 2020. He brought up the idea of working on it and giving it new life in Outatime! and without hesitation I said “Yes!”. He already had most of the instrument tracks written, but I still wanted to incorporate a little more melody in the lead guitar tracks while also adding a little haunted lead line to really bring that ending together. I think we went into the studio literally a week after we cancelled our tour due to the pandemic. I had already taken the week off work so I just sat down with my guitar and delay pedal and went to work. Once I had a solid idea of where I wanted to take the lead tracks I went into the studio with Dylan at Close Quarters Recording and went all in! Dylan had only really heard the original rough demos that Nikk had been working on so he thought that it would be similar to the demo. Now Dylan does not have a good poker face, he tells it how it is and if he hates it he will let you know right off the bat. So I remember going into the riff for the first verse and playing the palm muted scale for him on the first run and when I looked up he had this grin from ear to ear with excitement and from there I knew we had something special going!

After we finished recording and we heard the final mix I kept thinking about everything going on in the world around us. Just a few months before we went into the studio our friend lost his sister to domestic violence and while we were recording Mike lost a teammate on his hockey team to domestic violence. We really wanted to bring these issues to light because unfortunately in the society we live in talking about abuse in that scale is still very taboo. When we were recording the music video we had this theme of the protagonist running away from this entity that kept following her even though no one else saw it. That’s when I wanted to turn the discussion over to bringing up domestic violence and how it’s forever haunting even if no one around wants to see it going on. This is when we teamed up with a local organization called Stand Up! Survivor to help spread the message of “Love Should Never Hurt!”