Track By Tracks: Behind Bars - As I Wait For Death (2025)

1. P.A.I.N:

About a year ago, in 2024, we had the opportunity to play the Tolminator festival in Slovenia, which was a great experience for us because we could go on our first tour. But around that same period, Steven (guitar) was scheduled to get surgery on his back. He managed to get the procedure postponed by a couple of weeks so that we could still play the shows. That tour was absolute hell for him. Sleeping in tents or in the car, constantly hauling equipment, playing the shows, the stress,... it really took a toll on him, and by the end, he could barely walk back into his home.

After that, we took some time off so he could recover from the tour and the surgery. After a month or two, we were back at it, and Steven was a completely different person. He was moving, running, slamming, playing as if his life depended on it. He really came back with a vengeance. In remembrance of that medical struggle, the struggles with touring, and his personal life, we decided to make a song about it, and that song became P.A.I.N..

It's about hitting back stronger when you've been pushed to the ground, or, as said before, returning with a vengeance. It has some easter eggs regarding his back issues and what he went through in that period, but it can be applied to every situation possible. Whether you're in a depression, a toxic relationship, or financial trouble, you name it. We can always push back. We can always come back stronger. And we hope to inspire people to do so with a song like P.A.I.N.

2. AS I WAIT FOR DEATH:

A while back, my girlfriend got a call from an old friend of hers that his mom had died. She had been suffering from dementia for a long time and chose to say goodbye to her family because she began to struggle more and more in her fight against her illness. We were both very distraught by this news, even though we barely knew the mother. To get more attention towards this, I sat down with the band and we decided to make a track that addresses dementia. The story of the song is about a person who is in an elderly home. Every day, they wake him up around the same hour and place him in the same chair in front of his room's window. He's been doing this for so long he can't remember when it started, as for so many other things, he's starting to forget or has already forgotten. He tries thinking back to his childhood, his family, and all the good times he has gone through over the years. Some remain, but some are gone. He is basically waiting to die every day they put him in the chair. One day, he feels worse than others. His life is starting to slip. He tries to remember as much as he can before the reaper comes to take him. When death comes knocking on his door, he greets it as a friend and leaves to be reunited with his long-lost loved ones.

3. SPIRAL:

Did you ever wake up in the morning and think, “This is going to be a bad day,” or “I'm going to lie back down, I don't feel like doing today”? Well, Spiral is basically about that, but in the sense that we're breaking free from this. Everyone can have a bad day sometimes, but we can't let that control us. Otherwise, we're going to get caught in the same loop of hating every day, negativity, depression,... Nowadays, you can see a lot if you're looking around on the street. People are not talking, crying, or being mean to each other. Chances are, that they have the mindset we talked about. Is this the way you want to be remembered? As a mean, unstable, and grey person? You could be surprised by what a little positivity could do for your life. Believe me, I've been there. With the last album, All In Due Time, the songs were mostly inspired by stages of depression and anxiety. With the new record, we wanted to flip that around, a follow-up, so to speak. What happens after all the darkness? Those are the themes of As I Wait For Death. Trying to get out of those bad thoughts and spirals that hold us down. Trying to be more positive. It's definitely a struggle and a fight. But we'll get there. We'll get out of that spiral.

4. WHERE TRUTH LIES:

If you turn on your TV or look at your smartphone or do a search on your laptop at every given moment, what do you see? War, hunger, political struggle, oppression,... the list goes on and on. And most of what they say is true, but a part is also taken out of context or blown out of proportion. We never know if we can truly believe the headlines. We can never say if what the politician is promising is actually going to come true. It's all about propaganda nowadays, and neither side knows who's telling the truth. The title is meant as a pun. Where does the truth hide itself, where does it lie down? Or where does it tell lies, how can we trust it?

Because we heard more and more people talk about the issue of media and its influence on people, we made a call to mold it into lyrics. We're usually not a political band, but for this song, we made a small exception. We don't try to take it too seriously; we're just trying to have fun. But sometimes a track with a message is a track that people can relate to, and we hope that some people are able to find something that they can agree on in this song.

5. ANTHEM:

We wanted to end the album with something that people could sing along to and have fun with without thinking too much about anything else. And that's what Anthem is about. Just having fun with your friends, talking about life, picking each other up when they're down, and blowing off some steam. Friendship, solidarity, and good old fun, who needs more, huh?

After what we've been through as a band these last couple of years, I think it's safe to say that we've become more of a family than just friends. And to commemorate that and show each other some brotherly love, this song turned into our anthem. Hence the title. So hopefully other people can relate to this song as much as we do and sing along the next time we're able to play it live.