Carly Fanning (ex-Kenotia vocalist) gives us the low down on her new band’s record, Close to Home out now on iTunes and BandCamp.
In the Beginning, There Were Voices
We actually wrote this over a year ago, and we were coming off a heavy Game of Thrones kick. We were really just screwing around but in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to use it eventually, and when we wrote the rest of the album, it worked in a weird way. So we put in on the album as the intro.
A World Away
This is the first official song we wrote together for this project. As far as the meaning goes, technically, at the time I was having a lot of dreams about a little kid, and it took me a couple of weeks of having this dream before I realized it was supposed to be my child. I ended up waking up in the morning sad that the dream was over, so I wrote this song. But obviously, that’s not a general feeling that everybody has so I wrote it in a way that could be interpreted any way you wanted to. Hopefully I pulled that off…..
Try
Try is a song close to my heart, and it’s really just about struggling in a relationship, whether it’s family, friends or significant other. It’s about feeling like you’ve put so much in and get little to nothing back and you start to realize it’s not ever going to change. It’s definitely not the happiest song, but I think it’s very important to get out those negative feelings. Coincidentally, it was also one of the hardest songs to sing for some reason. I did 4 or 5 versions of it over the span of 6 months and finally got it down to something I was happy with.
The Edge
Shawn actually came to me with the music already written and done on this one. It was one of the most fun to do because it’s different from the other songs on the album and most of the songs I’ve done previous to this. I was definitely seeing Mark Wahlberg in Rockstar the whole time I was recording this. It’s probably one of my two favorites on the album. For a minute the music threw me because it was so upbeat and I felt like I had nothing positive to say at the moment, but it ended up working for me. The song is just about the past few years and working in the music industry and basically how I haven’t gotten where I hoped I would, but even though it’s been difficult, I still believe I am supposed to do this. Fingers crossed!!!
Free the Flower Child
This song about killed me. Emotionally I’ve never had such a problem finishing a song but this one took me a long time. We worked on this for close to a year and didn’t get it right until two days before we put out the album. Last year my family lost a close friend very suddenly and we all had a rough time with it. I had written a few songs about how I was feeling and they were so horribly dark and depressing, I just couldn’t finish them. So I finally decided to write as if she were talking to me and what I’d like to hear her say. I had to take quite a few breaks while working on this but I knew the last time I heard it, that it was done. I still have a hard time hearing it though.
Shouting at Satellites
I love this song. It came out so easy once we started, I love it when that happens. The song is about my anxiety, basically. I injured myself a little while ago and it turned out not to be so bad but had the potential to be irreversible and ever since then, my anxiety has been through the roof. It’s just me questioning some of the rotten things in life and saying that sometimes I feel like no matter how much I ask for answers, or peace, I can’t find it and it feels like I may as well be shouting at satellites because nobody hears me. That’s also the reason we chose that as the name for the band.
Let’s Be Honest
The last song on the album was actually a surprise. We had everything else recorded and we were messing around with pro-tools one day and this was the result. It was completely random and not meant for the album but once it was done, it just fit. Without sounding cheesy, this is one of the most honest songs on the album, it reveals the most of me. I talk about times where I’ve been way too selfish, and disgustingly jealous of other people and about the fact that every day I have to fight those feelings to make myself the person I hope to be. The whole point of it though, is to let everyone know…hey, EVERYBODY feels this way. EVERYBODY has done these horrible things that they won’t share with other people and had feelings they are ashamed to share, but it’s not that stuff that makes you who you are, it’s how you bounce back and deal with all that. It’s the stuff you choose to do with those feelings that can make you bad or good. And if everybody truly WAS honest about themselves….maybe things would be a little easier?