Beastwars drummer Nathan Hickey on the title track from the band's triumphant new album.
Photo: Damian McDonnell
Verse Chorus Verse sees local artists break down the stories behind their music. For the latest in the series, Beastwars drummer Nathan Hickey fills us in on the title track from the band's new album The Death Of All Things, which is out today.
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When our second album Blood Becomes Fire was released in 2013, we played our album launch shows with Palm Desert band Unida. Their singer John Garcia was in Kyuss, who are definitely a huge inspiration to us, so we felt very lucky to have the opportunity. (Coincidentally we also played with Kyuss Lives a few weeks after our first album came out in 2011).
After sold out shows with them in Wellington and Auckland, we were on a huge buzz. Our album had debuted at number two on the top 40 and, as a band, we were definitely on a high. We had our first ever Australian shows to look forward to, but before joining up with Unida again the next night, we were set to play a headline show in a small underground bar in Sydney's CBD.
It was one of those shows were there are more band members in the room than paying audience. Everyone has them but this one was made slightly more uncomfortable by the bass player of one of the support bands asking on stage, on the mic, if they were getting paid that night so he could afford to put some gas in his Holden V8 for the drive back to Barramundi.
Fast forward 20 hours or so, skipping past the delicious souvlaki and meeting people at that show that have become great friends of ours, and we were in a totally different situation. The Unida show had sold out and about 700 hungry stoner rock fans packed the venue to see Sweden's Truckfighters, Unida and lil' ol Beastwars. We took to the stage after the local opener and played one of the best sets we have ever laid down. It was an electric feeling being on the big stage and knowing that we were winning over a crowd who may never have heard us before.
Immediately after leaving the stage, inspiration struck Matthew. What would become the verse of ‘The Death of All Things’ was sung on a stairwell deep within the building. He borrowed a cellphone from our bass player James and recorded some lyrics and a melody line, then came up and played it to us. We could all hear the potential in this rough sketch.
Generally, most Beastwars songs start with either Clayton or myself bringing a near complete idea of a verse, chorus and bridge to the band. This then gets fleshed out and "Beastwars-ified" as we call it. But ‘The Death of All Things’ is probably my favourite song on the album because it was written in a completely different and collaborative way compared to every other song of ours.
Starting with the rough vocal demo from that night in Sydney, James worked on a bass line at home and then bought it to band practice for us to jam on. I had an idea for some chords for the second section and we all thought it was starting to feel really good. Clayton then took those ideas home to work up a demo on his computer, adding the guitar melody overdubs and ideas for drums and percussion. When we jammed it the next time, I contributed the chords for the outro section and, finally, when it came time to record the album version, Clayton and I took turns adding the soaring overdubbed guitars.
When we went into recording this album we really didn't know if it was going to be our final album or not. What we did know though was that this would be the last song on the record. I love that even though the title and themes are dark, the song climaxes with such a triumphant feel.
The lyrics - “this will never, ever end” - still leave us with hope for the future.