{"id":60066,"date":"2018-05-18T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T08:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/?p=60066"},"modified":"2018-05-16T19:34:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T18:34:58","slug":"ep-premiere-arms-hearts-wires-crossed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/ep-premiere-arms-hearts-wires-crossed\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Premiere: Arms & Hearts – Wires Crossed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo Caption: Fish Outta Water<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The name Arms & Hearts<\/strong> will be a familiar one to longtime Already Heard readers. In recent years, Steve Millar has been performing his brand of impassioned folk punk up and down the UK.<\/p>\n

Today, Millar releases his new EP, ‘Wires Crossed’<\/em> through Real Ghost Records<\/strong>. For the Manchester-based singer-songwriter, it’s a different release as it is the first with a full band. The end result is a set of heartfelt punk that combines Millar’s influences, The Gaslight Anthem and Chuck Ragan, with deeply personal songs. As Steve explains in detail below, ‘Wires Crossed’<\/em> sees him explore his own mental health.<\/p>\n

To mark its release, we’re giving ‘Wires Crossed’<\/em> the exclusive premiere treatment. While Steve has penned a track-by-track account of the EP.<\/p>\n

Sore Sight For Sorry Eyes<\/h2>\n

‘Sore Sight for Sorry Eyes’ was the first song I wrote for this EP, and as soon as I had written it, I knew that it would be the single. Musically I wanted to go for a Beach Slang \/ Iron Chic vibe. With this being the first EP with full band production, my thought process was ‘if I am going to go different, I’m going to really go different’.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lyrically, (as most of my songs are) this track is about my steadily declining mental health, but also seeing a lot of my friends in bands absolutely smash it and feeling that I have not been able to give this the time it deserves, which can make me feel jaded.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wires Crossed<\/h2>\n

This was one of the later songs I wrote for this record. I actually wrote about 12 songs for this EP before deciding on the final track listing. ‘Wires Crossed’ and ‘Benchmarks’ were written afterwards. This one follows a similar subject to ‘SSFSE’ and the feeling that time is passing me by a bit.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s worth mentioning now that I recorded, mixed and produced this all myself. The reverse cymbal before the final chorus was actually a joke to begin with, but then I decided that I actually really liked it for some reason. So it stayed. Reverse cymbals are punk right?!<\/em><\/p>\n

Falling Short<\/h2>\n

I wrote this song about CIS dickheads on the internet. Like whenever the subject of non-binary genders come up, some people seem to act like it\u2019s going to affect their lives in some way? It\u2019s something that really really infuriates me. It\u2019s weird because I’m a very privileged cis white male, so I had to try hard to avoid virtue signalling, but I wanted to try and actually do something positive with my privilege. I had lots of fun with the electric guitars on this one and singing with my friends for the gang vocals at the end.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back Up Plans<\/h2>\n

I wanted this to have a big finish. I actually wrote the final part about three years ago but never had a song that seemed to fit until one day at when I was practising with my drummer (Sam Johnson) when I just whacked it on the end, and it just seemed right. I layered a lot of electric guitars at the end to get as big a sound as possible. At the time I was listening to a lot of Apologies, I Have None, and really liked the ending to ‘Long Gone’ with those huge backing vocals at the end. So that was what I opted to do!<\/em><\/p>\n

Benchmarks<\/h2>\n

This was the last song I wrote for this EP. I actually was halfway through recording another song instead, but it wasn’t coming together anywhere near how I envisioned. I wrote this while suffering from the worst hangover I think I’ve ever had (thanks 2 Pint glasses at the Manchester Ritz!), and just feeling extremely scared about the future. At the same time, I just wanted to try to say ‘this isn’t it, things can and will get better’. Also, I managed to reference The Menzingers and Kim Carnes in one song. That\u2019s definitely punk right?’<\/em><\/p>\n