L.S. Dunes (MCR, Coheed, Thursday, Circa Survive) Dissect Their Debut Album Past Lives Track by Track: Exclusive
The post L.S. Dunes (MCR, Coheed, Thursday, Circa Survive) Dissect Their Debut Album Past Lives Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
Supergroup L.S. Dunes have just dropped their highly anticipated debut album Past Lives. The LP’s release consummates a five-headed collaboration between like-minded musicians who are cut from a similar cloth: My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero, Coheed and Cambria’s Travis Stever, Circa Survive’s Anthony Green, and Thursday’s Tim Payne and Tucker Rule.
With such a wealth of combined talent, it’s no surprise that the 11 songs on Past Lives are a tour-de-force of post-hardcore. The album is especially rewarding for those who are familiar with each band member’s past work. On each song, you can catch sonic idiosyncrasies and easter eggs that inevitably trigger a pang of nostalgia. For example, Iero’s catchy chord progressions will perk the ears the MCR faithful. Meanwhile, Anthony Green’s impassioned vocals make Past Lives mandatory listening for Circa Survive fans.
The collective consciousness tends to pigeonhole supergroups as lesser projects — a distraction from each member’s day job, half-baked collabs, etc. — but L.S. Dunes put in the time and work to make their debut album more substantial. Just take it from the band members themselves, who offered up a track-by-track breakdown of Past Lives exclusively for Heavy Consequence. Their remarks reveal just how much care and effort went into the songwriting and recording process.
Stream the entire Past Lives album and read the track-by-track breakdown from L.S. Dunes’ individual members below.
“2022”
“2022” is probably the most personal song that I’ve ever written in my life. Every time I get to the verses of that song, I get a lump in my throat like I said too much. I never want a song to hurt or worry anyone, but they also cannot be a place that I hide in. Working on yourself and getting better is a slow process. “2022” is a reflection on the patience that’s required of a person during the process of recovery, when you’re conditioned towards the hunt for immediate gratification. There are moments when you’re fighting for your life, moments when you don’t think you can keep going. In those moments, I always need to tell someone — because that support you get from people who believe in you can make a huge difference. — Anthony Green
“Antibodies”
“Antibodies” started as the first group of riffs that I sent in. It was also the first group of riffs that were sent around in general. After receiving a joint text from everyone, I decided to sit right down and work on a riff. I have a tuning that I have used on a few songs in the past; I tune the low E up to F. It makes for a really cool approach at playing the low E open while barring the rest of the strings. I went straight to that tuning. I wanted to send something unique but still catchy. I respect all the guys so much as musicians and wanted this to work, so mentally, I was like.. “You gotta send something good!” No pressure, right? As everyone added their parts to the song, it was clear we had a chemistry. Eventually, this would also be the first Past Lives song that Anthony added vocals to. Which blew our minds. And here we are. — Travis Stever
“Grey Veins”
I stumbled onto the intro bass line for “Grey Veins” one night, but I I was playing it in the upper register. It was this really quirky little riff and I actually thought it might be a bit too left of center to even bring to the band. I had already convinced myself that they’d hate it, but I figured I’d send it anyway just to see if it sparked any ideas.
I remember immediately after sending it in the group text, probably at like 3 a.m., everyone reacting to it with such excitement. We had all been at the edges of our seats waiting for ideas to be sent and everyone jumped on it immediately. Tucker added the initial verse beat, and then Frank came out of nowhere with this absolutely perfect verse/chorus progression and it actually blew my mind. Hearing Travis’ leads and verse melodies, then Anthony’s vocal ideas and lyrics really brought this little idea to such crazy places. It’s honestly still hard for me to wrap my head around. — Tim Payne
“Like Forever”
This was one of the first ideas I sent out to the band. Everything was still so new to all of us and we hadn’t really fallen into an actual writing process at that point, so I honestly wasn’t sure how the other guys would approach this. I had a loose structure, but this was really more of a collection of bass lines than anything else. Writing on bass can be tough, because I’ll hear certain drum beats, dynamic shifts and melodies in my head, but that doesn’t always translate to others. And if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that verbalizing music ideas is literally impossible.
So, you just have to put things out there and have faith in the people you’re writing with. The craziest thing is that all of the drums, guitars, and vocals were a million times better than anything I had imagined! It was a huge moment in the band for me and really allowed me to let my guard down and just throw ideas out there, knowing and trusting that we somehow already had a collective voice even after only a few weeks. — Tim Payne
“Blender”
This was a riff that I had been kicking around a little while, never quite sure where it fit in with any project that I had going on. I could never quite finish it. I think when I don’t know where a song belongs, it’s hard for me to lace it all the way up. But when L.S. Dunes came into the picture, I brought it to the band and it just fit in so nicely. Anthony was never scared to sing over anything, which is such a rare and exciting quality to have in a singer. Then Tucker and Tim backed the riff so flawlessly that it started to take on a whole world. When I hear this song now, I always think of Tucker saying, “It feels like speeding down a desert highway at dusk,” and it transports me immediately. The finishing touch was Travis hitting all the perfect harmonies on those guitar lines. He really is a master at that. — Frank Iero
“Past Lives”
I love this song. I love the lyrics. It’s one of my favorite drum-songs on the record because there’s basically no cymbal hits, besides hi-hats, until the end. The riffs on guitar and bass were so infectious to me that my job was to not step on them. It became very apparent, very quickly that I wanted to do that robotic, old-school, punk hi-hat to follow the strumming energy of the guitars. The verses are haunting and I wanted to come up with a beat that was just as jarring. I had been working on this pattern between the kick and floor tom with a sort of quirky hi-hat pattern that spoke to me right from the start because of the song’s frantic energy. I felt the bridge needed to be super sparse tom hits to give the listener, and myself, a much needed break to catch your breath. The end is my favorite part because it all hits the fan, hitting as hard as I can, like it’s the last song on earth. — Tucker Rule
“It Takes Time”
Easily, one of the coolest songs that I’ve ever been a part of. Writing this right now reminds me just how lucky I am to be a part of it. This was the last song I recorded. A lot of the song drum-wise is exactly the same, other than the “B” part of the verse and the bridge, as our first demos we did over a year and a half ago for it. The interplay between the drums and bass in the verse brings me an infinite amount of joy. I couldn’t be happier with how the bridge turned out. Will Yip (Producer) is also a ripping drummer. We worked very closely on coming up
with a super cool beat for the bridge that hadn’t even been written yet musically. I trusted Will’s intuition and damn, was he spot on. Anthony’s vocal performance on this gives me chills. The dude is endlessly talented and I’m so grateful to walk the earth next to him and the rest of these amazing human beings. — Tucker Rule
“Bombsquad”
I heard that intro riff and knew the drum part had to be sparse to accentuate how damn cool that guitar part is. There’s a lot of space in the song, so I wanted to make sure the snare sounded massive. I used this solid steel 8×14 drum made by Greg Keplinger. There’s a stamp inside the drum that says “Not Fragile” and I think you can hear why on the intro.
Fast forward to Tim adding this colossal bass line that literally made my arm hair stick up. Anthony and Will Yip came with the bridge which is one of my favorite parts of the record vocally, as Anthony sounds possessed in the best way possible. Big drums, big riffs, and big love for this song! — Tucker Rule
“Grifter”
The group of riffs I sent to everyone for this one was all based on the verse portion. The rest of the stuff was all to favor that part. Will and Anthony did some really cool stuff with arranging the riffs to make what was once a bridge, a chorus. It really brought out unique qualities in the song. My verse part is a strange open D-riff. It’s going to be lot of fun live, as it’s challenging technically. I especially love the interplay of the bass and guitars in the verse. Above all of it, there are the catchy ear worm melodies that Frank and Anthony added to really draw you in. — Travis Stever
“Permanent Rebellion”
I love being in a studio making records. It’s the ultimate high for me. I remember we were doing pre-production in NJ over the summer before heading out to PA that fall to record with Will Yip and this was just a song that popped in my head while we were demoing and fine-tuning all the other stuff for the record. It popped in and wouldn’t leave and every time we had a free minute or a break that day, I would starting playing and working on this song. Tucker was the first to ask, “What is that?” To which my reply is always, “I have no idea,” hahaha. And so, maybe 30 minutes before the end of that day’s session, we all decided to not pack up and try and hash this song out. I know it can be stressful, but in my experience if a song comes up at the very last minute of a session, you always record it. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe it’s the universe giving you a gift. But for some reason it always ends up being a special song, if not the best one of the session. Something about the immediacy or the reckless abandon of having no time to overthink. You just go on instinct. And, as it turns out, “Permanent Rebellion” was the first single released for the record. — Frank Iero
“Sleep Cult”
Well if “Permanent Rebellion” was the last minute addition to the first day of pre-production, then “Sleep Cult” was the last minute addition to day two; the final day of pre-production. — Frank Iero
Our thanks to L.S. Dunes for providing us with an exclusive track-by-track of their new album. You can purchase Past Lives here.
L.S. Dunes (MCR, Coheed, Thursday, Circa Survive) Dissect Their Debut Album Past Lives Track by Track: Exclusive
Jon Hadusek
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