Track by Track: Sages - I
Sacramento rockers Sages have just released their new EP and vocalist/guitarist Dino Vidovich is here to break down each track. Check it out below!
Falling
This was the first song that was written for "I". I remember plugging my guitar in and the intro/verse riff just sort of spilling out in the first few minutes of warming up. Once that initial idea was there, the rest of the song came together within a couple hours. There is something about the ambient, mysterious, guitar sound that makes me immediately want to throw crushing rhythm guitars on top, and that's definitely reflected all throughout this song.
My favorite part of the song is the section with the guitar solo, haha, not because I'm a guitarist, but because our friend, Beau Burchell, from Saosin is the one that played the solo, and Saosin is one of my all-time favorite bands. I love Beau's style and what he writes so it was a trip when I first heard that section with the solo in there. I was blown away.
Walk Away
This one comes out swinging right out the gate. I remember thinking to myself that it had been awhile since we had written anything at this tempo or with this particular feel, so I went into the writing process with the intention of creating something that felt a little different than what we've been used to.
I wanted it to have a stripped down, raw, riff-driven, 4-piece rock band sound, where four people could go on stage, play the song, and sound exactly like the recording without needing a laptop to play along to. Yet, I still wanted it to sound modern. I love how it turned out.
Left For Dead
This is another one that comes out swinging. Greasy riffs and beats the entire song. I was experimenting with different chords and rhythms at the time we wrote this one so I really wanted to incorporate some of those elements. I love songs that rhymically dance around the down beats but still have a flow and feel to them where anyone can bob their head or tap their foot to them. Chris did an amazing job at kicking a beat that does exactly that.
Happy
Happy might be the most mellow tune we've ever written. It was arranged and approached kind of like a pop song. The chord progression was written around the vocal melody, and overall, it just tells its story without things needing to get super intense or complicated. It's just a straightforward tune with a vibe that is likely to tug at your emotions a little bit if you've ever lost someone close to you.
Sleepwalker (Extended Version)
This is one of our all-time favorites. Out of all the songs, I feel like this one checks the most boxes when it comes to reflecting our overall sound. It's intense, but beautiful. It has some heavy riffs, but it also has a sense of calmness to it. It goes from quiet vocals and acoustic guitars, to yelling over big riffs, to ambient guitars and acapella choir vocals.
It has a little bit of everything that we like to incorporate, musically and dynamically. It's actually an older song that we extended and reworked a little bit for live purposes, and because we enjoyed playing the live version so much, we decided to do another cut of the song and record it with the same extended arrangement that we do live.