Of Mice & Men discuss every track of new album ‘Defy’
Today (Jan. 19), Of Mice & Men will drop Defy, their first album with Aaron Pauley taking on the role of frontman following former vocalist Austin Carlile’s departure. “For us even being able to make this record was a bit defiant in nature,” he shares. “Having gone through such a major change and losing someone who was integral to our band, I think in a lot of ways it was defiant against people’s expectations and also in a lot of ways our own.” Ahead of its release, we spoke to Pauley about each track on the new album. See what he had to say below.
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“DEFY”
“Defy” is all about defying feelings of hopelessness, and, at the same time, defying that sort of disguised comfort that hopelessness [brings]. I say “comfort” because hopelessness can be comforting in that it gives you a reason to not try, and it gives you a reason to not extend yourself beyond what you think you can do. So in a lot of ways, hopelessness can be a comforting feeling because, you know, if all hope is gone then I don’t have to try. You already feel like you can call the future or feel like you know what’s going to happen, but that song is all about defying that.
“INSTINCTS”
We were supposed to do a festival called With Full Force festival in Germany, and it was in this giant vintage machinery graveyard kind of museum called Ferropolis. It’s also on a little lake, which I read about was a microclimate, and then a couple hours before we were supposed to play a literal hurricane, like a micro hurricane around the lake, happened. The whole festival got rained out and shut down. So the demo for that song, instrumentally, started that day.
“BACK TO ME”
[This track is about] using your passions and using the things that you truly love and enjoy as a way of rediscovering yourself after a major change. If you can reignite those passions in a lot of ways, you can always find a way back to yourself.
“SUNFLOWER”
Drove to Bakersfield, [California] to use Jonathan Davis’ from Korn’s studio. He invited us to come up there and just jam out and absorb the vibe from his studio. We set up our stuff in the middle of a room. It’s this old-timey movie theater that used to be Buck Owens’ studio, where they did a lot of the vintage country records. It was just a really cool vibe.
“UNBREAKABLE”
That was probably one of the first songs that was written or demoed. It’s a reaffirmation to ourselves, first and foremost, and then to anybody who listens to it. In times when you feel vulnerable, you have to tell yourself that you feel otherwise. Not necessarily because it’s disingenuous to do so, but I think as much as we write music for our fans, we write it for ourselves. [This] song is very much a reaffirmation to ourselves that in times of despair or hopelessness—much like “Defy”—it’s important to remember that you don’t have to let the world break you.
“VERTIGO”
Making albums is supposed to be fun, and it’s supposed to be adventurous. I’d never played a sitar before, and there was a guitar lead in “Vertigo” that when I demoed it, was originally a guitar. But I was, like, “Can we try plugging the sitar in and I can try to figure out how to play it on that?” It ended up sounding really awesome. The adventurous nature of making music in a studio that’s got a lot of different instruments bodes well for the creative nature of our band.
“MONEY”
We were basically three-and-a-half, four weeks in and all the instrumentals were recorded. Howard Benson wanted us to think about doing a ballad or a downtempo song, which became “If We Were Were Ghosts” and a cover.
Pink Floyd’s “Money” was the first thing blurted out, and we all kind of looked at each other like, “I don’t know.” They’re in the pantheon of untouchables. We wanted to stick to the original vibe and feel, but all of the sampling for the coins and everything, it’s all modern. So there’s a money counter and a digital coin sound from when you do an online transaction. It’s modernized so it’s not dated back to the ’70s.
“HOW WILL YOU LIVE”
I think we live in an era now where people are finally starting to talk more about mental health and trying to break the stigma of that discussion. It’s very much posting a question to somebody and saying, “If you’re just going to hide, what eats you alive, how will you live?” In a lot of ways, that was our take on where we’re at and encouraging people to talk about the stuff you’re going through. Because, ultimately, that’s the way to work it out and make it through.
Lyrically, our songs are written so no matter where you’re at, whether you are a casual listener or a die-hard fan, it can resonate with you. Music is all about the connection. For us, it’s about, first and foremost, the songs and about connecting with people and about the whole human experience, the way people experience music—both live and listening to it on record. For us, [it’s] always really important that we consider all aspects of that.
“ON THE INSIDE”
I think if anything, music is supposed to be honest, and that’s kind of the antithesis of “Unbreakable”—feeling like you are breaking on the inside. I think if we’re going to have songs like “How Will You Live” where we talk about breaking down the stigma of that, then in a lot of ways, you have to open yourself to that honesty. I feel like that’s the human experience. Everybody has felt that way at one point in time, saying on the outside everything looks great but on the inside it’s not.
“WARZONE”
We were working on the instrumental of that song, organizing it in my apartment, when we had gotten the news that Chester [Bennington] had passed away. He was a very, very close friend to our band and a close friend to all of us. I wrote that song after having a panic attack a few days after that because I was just really kind of struggling with that.
“FOREVER YDG’N”
Lyrically, that song alludes to one song from each of the past releases. “Those In Glass Houses,” [from self-titled], “When You Can’t Sleep At Night” [from The Flood], “You Make Me Sick” [from Restoring Force] and “Away” [from Cold World].
It’s built on a bunch of metaphors and references from the entire discography of Of Mice & Men, and it fits in the Ya Dig saga. For us, it’s a nod to the legacy of everything of Mice & Men is and was and will be.
“IF WE WERE GHOSTS”
[It’s] all about dealing with the feelings of losing somebody. A huge inspiration for writing the lyrics to this song is thinking about Chester and just thinking about other people who I’ve lost in my life over the last couple of years. The unfortunate reality of life is the older you get, the more people you lose. Loss is such a complex feeling, complex experience and a complex emotion that it encompasses a lot of different things. That was, if anything, our tribute to Chester and our tribute to the people we’ve lost along the way.
