Songs From The Past (Part Four)

Time for another installment of Songs From the Past. This time I will be looking at the only other song I was able to get recorded in a studio from the band days. The song title is Rage, and it was written in late 1996 and recorded in January of 1997 by the same guy that recorded The Day. Rage was the final hurrah for my musical journey back in the day. After this song, I wouldn't write another song for over a decade.

The song was written for the latest incarnation of our garage band. We called ourselves Drop Box and featured my cousin Jimmy on drums, Dan Matter on vocals, Nate Wick on bass and Jaymz Braith and myself on guitars. We played mostly heavy metal music, so the song has the heavy metal vibe. The tuning is drop D and it is by far the heaviest thing I have ever written. I wrote the chorus riff first and then built the verse and bridge riffs after that. It all came together pretty quickly from what I remember. Everything but the vocals that is. While I knew the song needed to be hard hitting and heavy, I needed to figure out where I wanted it to go. One day I just sat down with a pen and paper and started writing.

I wrote both of the verses first. The song was about a deranged man that can't handle the fact that his girl being rejected by his girlfriend and goes crazy because of it. I imply that he kills her with the lyrics, but that is open for interpretation as I don't come out and say it. The hardest part of the song is also the simplest part... the chorus. It took me a long time and many rewrites to finally get what I wanted out of the chorus. It had to be short and simple, but how would I tie it all together? I remember it was myself and Jimmy sitting at the farm brainstorming what to do for the chorus, and I don't even remember who came up with it. I believe I came up with "Unshattered dream scape" to start off the chorus. After that it may have been myself or Jimmy who finished it off, but no matter who it was it tied both verses together perfectly. Lyrically and musically the song is very dark, but to this day I consider it one of my masterpieces. I love how it turned out from the music to the lyrics and I hope you enjoy it too.

Rage - Written by Brian Bartholow in December 1996. Recorded by John in January 1997.

Listen to Rage:



Vocals: Dan Matter
Lead Guitar: Brian Bartholow
Rhythm Guitar: Jaymz Braith
Bass Guitar: Nate Wick
Drums: James Armstrong III

Part Five will be coming soon. I hope you enjoy this short series of blogs.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TheBrianThomas for some fun quips on music, wrestling and more.