Mad Painter On the Making Of “Empty Bottles”
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind "Empty Bottles" and the story it tells?
It’s about the loneliness of spending days in a home confinement during a lockdown. There’s nowhere to go. Everything’s closed. No trains are running. No bars are open. Many found their solace in a bottle, hence the title. But if you have faith, patience and a charge of inner positivity, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, just as long as one doesn’t give up hope. That’s the song’s sentiment in a nutshell.
Were there any memorable or standout moments during the recording sessions for this song?
It was written in 2021, first premiered live in early 2022 at the Winter Tangle festival, and went down amazingly well. November of that same year, we played it live at the Boston Wave Radio, and that version’s up on YouTube as well. But we’ve had to wait until this year to finally commit proper tracks to ProTools (I almost wrote “tape”!) The drum break is “Saturday Night” by Bay City Rollers, an intentional pun, or paean. The synth intro and outro is derivative of Status Quo’s “Caroline”, that song has a similar riff, only played on guitar. I did both of them on synth, which prompted immediate “Gary Numan” comparisons. Now that was not intended.
What has been one of your most favorite memories along the path to making "Empty Bottles?"
I originally thought of a Marmalade song of the same name, but that one’s completely different. And has a different message. Theirs is wistful and melancholic. Ours is a power rocker in the style of Slade and Geordie. It has an “All Because of You” stomp & chant in the chorus. But that is how it evolved. Originally, I conceived it as a laid-back Smokie style country rocker, only to realize that it had more energy to become a stomper and a crowd pleaser. The video, out this Thursday along with the single, was a lot of fun to make. We shot it at the Ultrasound Productions studio in Hanover, MA. Same place as the previous two we did two years ago, Illusion and Samurai. But unlike before, I decided to step out front with a microphone, although of course we were lip-syncing to the audio track.
Can you walk us through your creative process when writing and composing music?
I prefer relying on other people’s lyrics these days. It’s easier for me to read someone’s poem and visualize it in my head, imagining the musical arrangement, the rhythm, the melody, and the structure. Our friend Dmitry M. Epstein, author of the lyrics on our previous album, “Splashed”, has contributed even more of his poetry to the upcoming album. But on occasion, I write my own lyrics, case in point being indeed “Empty Bottles”.
What do you enjoy most about performing live and connecting with your audience?
The audience's reaction, is priceless and an endless source of adrenaline, when the stars are in alignment. We feed off their energy, and it goes full circle, a feeling like no other. Sometimes crowds can be lukewarm and partisan, and you can always sense a cold reception. That’s when I realized it was time to double down and work twice as hard to win them over.