Feature: Wise Up Decodes “Out To Dance”
What inspired you to write the lyrics/music for "Out To Dance?"
“Out to dance” is a song that came together so quickly and naturally. It started with the idea to write a song that was a little different from the other songs we had previously written. We knew we wanted to create a bass-driven dance song with a catchy dance beat. From there we added keys, which was a first for us and we wanted the bass and keys to be the backbone of the track, rather. The music came together quite naturally for us after jamming on the main riff and so did the lyrics. It was a compilation of jamming and writing between two of the band members and then brought to the group so that each member could add their own stylistic parts to it. The song was originally called ‘Jane’ which changed once the lyrics wrote themselves. The song is one everyone can relate to and paints the picture of escaping to the city to enjoy a night out and losing oneself to the rhythms of the dance floor.
What impact do you hope this song will have on your audience?
We hope that it inspires our audience to get out on the floor and dance with us. The idea being the song is an empowered and resilient protagonist who finds comfort and relaxation through music and dancing, however we hope that our listeners will relate to the words in their own ways. Additionally, we hope that it illustrates our ability to write and play music that subscribes to a different genre than we normally do and showcases the band's ability to diversify our sound.
What has been one of your most favorite memories along the path to making "Out To Dance?"
Making the music video as a band and with one of our friends @georeganoskates who spent a few hours providing the epic skating footage in the video. The narrative follows the imagery of the song's lyrics from start to end and the skating shadows ‘Jane’ dancing. It's filmed in first person too, so it makes the viewer feel like they are the person traveling into the city to enjoy a night out dancing. The mix came out as a collage of lots of happy moments between the band rehearsing the song and us enjoying a night out in Dublin city, moving from bar to bar and capturing the little moments along the way.
How did your band members initially come together?
There are lots of different nationalities in the band, as we have members from Ireland, Canada and Venezuela. Courtney who comes from western Canada and Garry from Ireland are married and formed the band back in 2022. The band performed its first ever gig at their wedding. In 2023, Juan from Venezuela joined the group then followed by Andrew who joined the group in late 2023. The idea behind the band was to share our love for music and create together. We all contribute to the band in many ways and one of our favorite things to do is to switch instruments; we can all play multiple instruments and we swap around our roles and instruments regularly. We also all contribute by writing different songs individually and collectively.
What role do you feel emotions play in your music, and how do you channel them into your performances?
We are a bunch of friends who share a passion for music and we believe our live performance follows just that; fun, energy and a love for playing music. We love getting the chance to perform as it captures the emotions of our songs in a different way than recordings. We as a band are able to feed off each other's energy along with the crowds to create a unique emotion. We believe emotions are everything with music and we try to capture the feeling or imagery behind a particular idea, using our lyrics or by changing the dynamics at key points in the song. For example “Out to dance” has quite a ferocious and empowering emotion which is echoed with the lyrics ‘soul survivor’ and encapsulated by the groove of the bass and drums.
