We’re hard at work on our follow up album to be released in early 2021.
While our first album, X: The Human Condition was about the journey of the human condition from dark to light, our follow-up will focus more on the recovery after having experienced setbacks in life.
How do you recover after having experienced disaster? We feel qualified to write about the subject because of all the challenges we’ve overcome, and because it led to the creation of our inspiring non profit website, RiseUpEight.org.
We thought we’d give you some insight on some of the songs we are putting together on the upcoming album.
On “This Town”…
This Town about unity. Worldwide, we are dealing with the pandemic. As if that wasn’t enough, here in the USA, we are a nation divided. Where we can go from here is either terrifying or inspiring. We are at a crossroads, but if we can come together as a town, as a city, as a nation, then everything can change. This means actually listening to each other and working together rather than blaming each other and having an “us against them” mentality.
Things are looking up, as people are beginning to wake up, but even among those who want to change, there are those that want to take advantage for their own selfish purposes.
This Town is a message of hope, and it is one that illustrates that “Our Town” doesn’t end at any geographical border. This Town is this world. We are all one race, the human race, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can create lasting change.
People create miracles every day, overcoming overwhelming challenges in life, and many times we never even hear these stories. We try to feature them on our nonprofit website, RiseUpEight.org to inspire people to realize that you can get through anything. So if we can get through anything individually, that only proves that we can do so as a town, as a nation and as one people. But we have to do it together.
On “Banksters”
People have told me that this is their favorite song on the upcoming album, and I can understand why. I’ve always loved that word, “Bankster” and whoever made it up deserves a medal. Banks can do anything and get away with anything, they are fined millions of dollars and pay it off like they’re paying off a traffic ticket, going right back to doing their bad deeds over and over again. Naughty, naughty buggers. It’s about corruption, greed and the almighty dollar. It’s about the corporate officers who care more about the bottom line than human lives. The song tells the story from the vantage point of someone just like you and I, and how the situation is seen from their prospective.
On “Colors”
Are you curious about the gibberish part of the song? Don’t politicians always sound like gibberish? 🙂
I love being subversive. As the lyrics say,”shell game, master plan”. Politicians will all tell you how much they care about you and how they want the best for you, but it is in fact a shell game. And just like a shell game, that ball will travel around from cup to cup, and you’ll think that you know where it is, but the sleight-of-hand always wins.
Both sides are playing us against each other, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, we are all pawns in their game. Those in power want to keep it and those that are not in power want the power. They will say anything to get elected on both sides. Just remember that those who are touted to be “leaders” often have hidden agendas.
Even as we rise up to fight for social change and social justice, those leading the uprising have hidden agendas. The key to the truth is to think for yourself, do research and learn what’s really happening, underneath the sweet talk. Don’t just blindly following leaders that may be leading us off a cliff.
On “Seasons”…
This is perhaps my favorite lyric. I struggled with the fact that I was going through hell in my life and searching for some meaning as to why this was happening. It wasn’t until I came out of that that I realized that like the seasons change, so do our lives.
I believe that our lives, like the seasons go through times of drought, dormancy and stagnancy, but then progresses in spurts when everything seems rosy and blooming. Then it goes back to the dormant drought again.
That’s just natural. Sometimes we need to go through a long hard cold winter to make us stronger. It’s difficult to see that when you’re trudging through the snow, but if you can get through the winter, good times lay ahead. You just have to be patient and prepare for the harvest.
And during the winter time, instead of worrying and complaining, do the preparation and lay the groundwork for the future. And trust that with the new season, a bountiful harvest will come. You can’t fight nature, and it’s nature that we’re dealing with through the seasons of our lives.
When the most famous book of all time says, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”, it isn’t necessarily referring to the weather. : )
– Michael
