On February 8th, Always Tyrants released it’s first ever single everywhere music is steamed. The song is titled “You’re the reason”, and has a significant meaning to the band. Written in the summer of 2016, Matt had challenged himself to write a song about his girlfriend, who he had plans to marry.
“Writing this song was kind of challenging at first, sometimes I have a harder time writing about things that I care deeply about, because everything I come up with doesn’t seem to do my feelings justice. This song was one of those moments where I was taking a shower and the lyrics and melody just came into my head, I had to hop out the shower immediately and record myself singing into my phone before I forgot. I really wanted to make this the kind of song that had a deep personal meaning in it, but was also something a lot of people could listen and relate to, and I really feel like we accomplished that.”
After presenting the melody to Alec, the two were able to come up with a guitar part that fit the melody within a half hour. Once the guitar and vocals were put together, the rest of the song came together quickly. It would be almost two years however, before the song would get recorded.
Matt married his girlfriend who he wrote the song about, and in early 2018, they had a son born two months premature. The band had set its sights to record in early 2018, but had to change plans after Matt’s son was born.
“It was a stressful time.” Says Matt, “Luckily he was healthy, but everything seemed to take longer than we expected. Every day i’d get off work and drive up to the hospital, and stay there until late at night, and then drive back home and get up the next morning and do it all again. That lasted two months before we got to take him home, and after we got him home, we just wanted to stay home. I was anxious for like two weeks after we had him home, I just constantly felt like we were supposed to leave soon. Our house just became a place with a bed in it, it felt weird to be able to just there with our kid and relax.”
Throughout this time, the band was extremely supportive, practicing together when they had the chance, but mostly just being there as friends. After everything slowed down, talks of recording began again. Choosing a studio was something the band did not want to rush into. After researching and talking to different studios, the group decided to have a meeting with Grammy-nominated engineer Tom Ware from Ware House Productions.
Matt reflects, “We liked Tom, we thought he was a fun guy and he definitely seemed like he knew what he was doing. What was crazy about it though, was that after meeting him I started having the most random people tell me how good of a guy he is. I’ll never forget one time I was literally taking out the trash and my neighbor who I hardly ever talk to, stopped me and asked about the band, when I told we were thinking about working with Tom, he had actually worked with him like 10 years ago! He really liked and trusted him, and within a week I had a couple of customers at work tell me similar stories, I was like ‘Whoa, this must be a sign it was meant to be!'”
Finally, in November of 2018, the band officially booked their recording with Tom, set for January 12th, 2019. With the date set, the band had to amp up their practices to fully be prepared for the recording date with this song being drummer Zach’s first time recording in the studio, and Alex’s first time playing bass in a studio as well. As the date got closer, another change was made for the band. Typically Alec plays a Gibson SG, however for this recording they decided to use a 1976 Fender Stratocaster that Alex’s mom has owned since the 70s. This guitar has a lot of sentimental value to the band, it was basically the first guitar Matt and Alex had actually played on, and as Alex and Matt grew up and developed their musical taste, it was always special when his mom would let them play it.
“It was kind of weird to play at first” Says Alec, “The neck of it is a lot fatter than the SG so it was awkward for my hands at first, I was also kind of scared to touch it, it’s such a classic guitar and I was afraid I’d drop it or something, but I got used to playing it pretty quick and it went pretty smooth.”
With the Tom, the band was able to record the song in a way that left everyone satisfied. “The great thing about recording, and recording with someone like Tom, is that you can try to add something new and hear it in a way you don’t get when you’re playing it in a basement or rehearsal space. We were able to capture what the song is about in a very genuine way. Plus I got to use the same microphone Lady Gaga used there.” Matt says with a laugh.
*You’re the Reason can be played on all streaming platforms