Afterthought is out now!
Image: Supplied.
Sydney-based pop-punk quintet Afterthought have today shared their self-titled debut EP. If you're loving the release and want some insight into each track, we've got you covered! The four-piece have treated MILKY, taking us through the EP track by track.
SUMMERSET STUNNER
“I wish you weren’t my Summerset Stunner”
Summerset Stunner was born from a culmination of musical influences from every corner of the genre compass. This combination of different ideas, combined with Max's impeccable hook writing, lead to one of the catechist songs on the EP and a perfect way to open the EP.
The title of the song was the first lyric written and was the foundation on which the story of the song would grow. A ‘Summerset Stunner’ was Tadhg's way of describing a person who you grow very close to due to spending a large amount of time with them, but when that stops, so does the deepness of your relationship. Written about Tadhg's now fiancé (proof that fairytale endings can happen), the song tells of someone trying to hold on to their summer but terrified that by trying to be more, they would ruin what they already are.
TIGHTROPE
“One foot then the other, you’ll be fine / I’m praying that I don’t fall off this time”
Probably the ‘heaviest’ song on the EP, Tightrope went through a lot of different iterations before we arrived at the final product. But the process of writing and rewriting allowed us to refine this song into a banger that we’re super proud of!
This song tries to encapsulate the feeling that your life is teetering on a tightrope, and one small slip up could send you tumbling off the wire. But it’s infused with a sense of optimism, in that it encourages the listener to keep taking those forward steps, no matter how small. You might not be able to see the end of the rope, but keep your arms outstretched and head up, and it’ll all be ok in the end.
SHIMMER
“Inside my mind, they shimmer in that starlight tonight”
This song is something that we are proud of and is something kind of new for us as a band. It’s the most ‘pop’ sounding song, but we are happy with how it turned out. In our original demo, it was a bit more chord driven, but now that intro has that huge octave lead that Tadhg wrote, and it just takes it to a new level. Also, we had a bridge before we took into the studio, but it was this heavy and dark thing we had written, and it just didn't fit at all with everything else we had added to the song. So, in the studio we wrote the new bridge, which just really ups the energy of the song and is a cool addition.
A fun fact about the lyrics, in the second verse we have a lyric that says, “is it cliche to say that I’ve grown to love this pain”. We were writing the lyrics together, and we asked to come up with the lyric “I’ve grown to love this pain”. After this, we were questioning whether it was a good lyric, or if it was a really cliche one. So, from there, we thought that asking that question in a lyric was quite cool, so that's how that lyric came to be!
HOMEBOUND
“I never knew how to find a part of you I didn’t like”
This song was a weird mix of a marathon and a sprint in terms of how it was written. The main chord progression was written back at the start of 2018 by Ryan, but it took around two years for it to get worked on again because we simply didn't know what to write! Eventually, Tadhg sat down and in a couple of hours nutted out a demo and we were off to the races! Fortunately, the same wasn't true in the studio as anything we decided to change happened so quickly that it was a blast to write!
The song is the story of two of Tadhg's work friends who, due to Covid, had to return home to the UK barely 3 months after they arrived in the country. The song aims to encapsulate the feeling of having to let someone go who you desperately wanted to spend more time with.
EMBERS
“You’re burning up the oxygen / Now there’s no air left to breathe”
This song came about with Tadhg wanting to write a whole song about just one riff, kind of like Give Yourself A Try by The 1975. So, the original demo had this one riff that went throughout the whole song, with those big chords being the main changes in the verses and choruses. In the end, that riff is now only in the chorus, but that thinking is what brought about this song, and we reckon it is the perfect way for us to end the EP!
Lyrically, the chorus revolves around this metaphor of fire which represents someone you really care about and want to be with, and how when you're around them, they seem to fill the space in the room until it feels like it's just you and them. But no matter how great it feels to be around them, you fear telling them how you feel because, in your mind, the chance of them reciprocating can't possibly outweigh the pain that rejection would bring, so you run from the burning Embers.
Afterthought is out now! Listen to the release below.