Recently Birmingham rockers Page 44 released their new album ‘All That Changes, Stays The Same.’ Funded by the bands Red Bull Bedroom Jam win in 2011 and PledgeMusic, ‘All That Changes…’ sees the pop rockers take on issues such as depression and breaking up with a loved one and mixing it with soaring, hook-y guitars and upbeat harmonies.
Lead vocalist Adam Vygus recently spoke to Already Heard to give an in-depth account of each track on ‘All That Changes…’ in our latest “Track Guide” feature.
If your band would like to set up a ‘Track Guide’ feature for Already Heard, email Sean Reid.
1. Growing Pains
This is a newer track and started out just as the chorus riff. We wanted a song that was a bit quicker tempo and you could bounce too so had experimented with a few Drop D riffs. Stanny (Adam Stanford) brought this one into the rehearsal room and we liked it, started jamming it out and eventually the words “Grow Up, Grow Up” came in. I then worked on the lyrics after just seeing how immature people were on social networking sites, constant bickering etc and worked it around the context that people seem to find it harder to grow up these days and become mature so its, kind of like giving advice to them.
2. Watch Me Fade
This is probably the oldest song on the album, we have had it for a long time, but it completely changed shape when we recorded it at Red Bull Studios. We had the hooks in place but the structure was a bit messy, a bit too stop starty, John Mitchell and Ben Humphreys pretty much rearranged it and it is so much better now! I wrote this many years ago, when I had my first bout of depression. I found that people around me didn’t understand it and started to distance themselves from me or weren’t themselves around me and that some people seemed to get upset themselves, as if they blamed themselves for my depression. So this song was wrote as a way of self therapy to get all that out.
3. Now That We’re Older
This song was again written recently, we were playing around with Drop D tuning again and Stanny came in with practically the whole verse and chorus section straight into the rehearsal room. We loved it, it starts off slow and builds up to a big shout along chorus! It just needed some bits to join it together and Zach obliged with the prechorus chord progression. It’s about growing out of a relationship. Stanny’s previous relationship was a long one and took him some time to realise that it wasn’t good for him. Relationships that were good when you were younger don’t necessarily carry on through as people mature. So now that we’re older we realise it wasn’t good for us.
4. Answers
This song was written when Stanny’s previous relationship was coming to an end. He came in with the verses, “Goodbye, leave but don’t cry” its about saying goodbye to a partner at the end of the relationship and trying to make them come to terms with the decision. I used the basis of this for the chorus, both people in a relationship can look for answers to why it didn’t work, who’s fault it was and what if’s but that sometimes there is just no real answers no matter how long you look for them. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be!
5. No Truth At Al
Another older song, written back before Zach and Jay were in the band. We have had a few line up changes in the band over the years and this was written after a previous drummer and bassist had left the band, it was all clouded in a bit of mystery, nothing seemed to make sense as to why they wanted to leave and there was what seemed to us a lot of lies and deception surrounding it. Stanny came up with the verses to basically tell our side of the story, that’s why we wanted to keep the verses pretty open with just the one main rhythm guitar and the tom laden drums to help drive the story to the listener. The choruses are a bit more aggressive, and basically saying that we will move on and that we will be bigger and better for it but karma will get them.
6. Only for the Night
This is basically about cheating. It’s not autobiographical but rather tells a story of a guy, thats been cheated on. He starts off by telling her she won’t do better than him, telling her she has made her bed now she has to lie in it. The chorus is basically telling her that she has thrown away a great relationship just for a one night stand! Stanny came in with the verse chord progression and we wanted to keep it rather chilled so the bass line is quite open with only a few notes. I remember my guitar part being inspired by the temper trap song sweet disposition. I had recently got a new delay pedal and wanted a guitar line similar to the intro guitar in that song, simple but with a lot of delay. We wanted to make it more emotional by adding the layers of harmonies into the verse. Zach’s high harmony on the “ooooo”’s is superb and really makes the song.
7. Siren
This song started with the intro/chorus riff. Zach brought it to us, told us how to play it and how he imagined the drums for it so we gave it a go! its sounded pretty big and we kept going over and over it and before long Stanny came up with the “youuuuuuu will never” part in the chorus so we tried to base the song around that! I came up with the age old idea about making it about a woman, that has a hold over you but is no good for you. So the title ‘Siren’ came up and then just about piecing the rest of the song together. Zach came up with the rifftastic breakdown into the middle 8 which again we loved but It didn’t fully come together till we were in the studio. The extra harmonies in the middle 8 and in the chorus were all added to the song as after thoughts but without them the song would be so empty!
8. Closer
This song was inspired by a chord progression in a song by Hot Rod Circuit called ’45’s’ – we just loved the sound of the chords in the intro so started messing with them and made them into our own progression. We struggled for a while to go anywhere with the progression though. Once Zach got involved it didn’t take long for me and him to nail down the chorus riff and we started to build the song around that. I wrote the lyrics based on what was happening with the band at the time, We were involved in the first stage voting process for Red Bull Bedroom Jam and it was all getting rather bitchy between a lot of the bands, so once we had got through the first stage, the chorus was written as a bit of a middle finger up to the bands that were giving us grief and the verses as a bit more of a mantra that they should follow if they wanted to further themselves.
9. I Wish You Luck
This song was actually finished whilst we were at the studio. I think the first time we actually fully played it through, was when we were tracking the drums for it. Stanny had been experimenting with some new tunings and came in with most of the progressions for the whole song and the one line for the verse its what your running from. This sparked an idea for me in the chorus that it was about a break up, but an amicable one where you genuinely wish the other person luck in the future. The verses then got developed on the same idea, but felt a lil empty so we made it the sort of call and response style that it is now and put the harmony in the middle of each line of the verse to try something different.
10. Hide and Seek
This song is pretty autobiographical and a song I needed to have on the album to help me move on with some issues I have/had. I had the chord progression for a while, I kept coming back to it over and over and but no lyrics jumped up at me. Then i started to use it as a bit of therapy again to combat my depression. I decided that i was sort of not happy with who depression was making me, so i was hiding my real feelings and it was causing problems and that i needed to start searching for the ways to get better. Then I liked the idea of ‘Hide and Seek.’ Like I was playing a game with myself, I was hiding what was going on whilst trying to get better so i put those ideas together and voila! We tryed to do it full band and it just didn’t seem to work but thinking about it, it makes it much more emotional just with the one acoustic guitar but needed a lil something else so Zach’s Girlfriend Jes obliged with the harmonies.
‘All That Changes, Stays The Same by Page 44 is available now.
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If your band would like to set up a ‘Track Guide’ feature for Already Heard, email Sean Reid.
