Frontman MIKE HERRERA tells the stories behind each song on Watch The Years Crawl By from ARTHUR—featuring Herrera and MxPx bandmates Tom Wisniewski and Yuri Riley along with their former tech, Neil Hundt. Originally conceived as an MxPx side project, Arthur released the six-song Loneliness Is Bliss EP in 1999 and most of the songs on this new disc were written more than a decade ago.

COLD OUTSIDE       
We live in the Pacific Northwestand it gets “cold outside,” so I wrote a song about it, but it's not really about the weather. The track is actually about how we get comfortable with a person and the thought of losing him or her is devastating, especially when you can feel them moving further away. In that moment, it’s like slow motion, but you can't do anything about it. The thought of that just kills you inside and you do everything you can to hold on. But like many relationships we go through, it just wasn't meant to be. I redid the lead vocals for this song and added some backing vocals that were never there originally. I think it's got just enough “new” sprinkled on top of what it was to give it a nice shine. This song is exactly what Arthur sound like.

AMERICA
This is a montage kind of song. Picture a movie where you and someone you really love are driving around, over a bridge and across the countryside. Now this song plays in the background…

BE STILL
Sometimes the hits just keep coming and life goes from bad to worse. This is not a happy song, but I think it's a true song.

HEARTACHE
This is a love song, a hate song, a “don’t know where to go from here” song. Don’t let them get you down. Don’t let them piss all over you.

TUCK YOU IN
Being away from home, friends and family is not easy. This is a long-distance love song. I’ve used being lonely to my advantage and you can really feel it within these Arthur songs.

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD
This is a direct deposit song. It’s straight-up saccharin. I'm available for weddings or you can just play the CD!

TIE ME TO YOU       
This is the newest song on the album, written in this decade while all the other songs were written in the ’90s. Don't get me wrong, this song is still about nine years old. It’s a pretty straight forward, “guy meets girl, girl says yes” kind of song.

THOUGHT A LOT
This is the only song that made it from the EP to LP. This is a song about admitting when you're wrong and pleading your case that everything will be better this time. Just give it a chance. It’s a post break-up, pre-closure song to sing along to.

OUT OF THE BLUE
This is a date song, but much more dramatic than usual. Please don’t try this on the first date or you will be labeled a freak (for good reason).

FORTISSIMO
“Fortissimo” is about a person, about war, about politics, about ideas, about memories, about the past, about time and how it keeps moving, about sounds clashing together but somehow working, about charity, about needs and about understanding.

YOU BRING ME TO MY KNEES
This is almost a poem—almost. “Tie up my heart and hang it on a string.” I’ve always like the visuals of this song. Some of it can be taken literally and, of course, some if taken literally will literally kill you.

STILL HAVEN'T REACHED YOU
I wrote this at 21, and it's so strange to think about what I was thinking at that time in my life. I was busy and seeing the world, but everything can stop for a little when you meet the right person, even if just for that moment. But then the moment slips away, never to return. Now we must make new memories. alt