Track By Track: Of Mice & Men

AUSTIN CARLILE takes AP track by track through OF MICE & MEN’S new album, The Flood.

“O.G. Loko”

We wanted to put [this song] first, because it is extremely similar to the debut album, thus making it a little easier to transition into our second. The entire track is about dedication, sex and love. You can use your imagination when I scream, “It's so damn hard, I'll make this last. I’m the artist, paints in white, your skin canvas…” I've sang and written about love before, but with love comes some sort of physical attraction to that person. When you're with someone you are in love with, there is no doubt there are more than sparks; [it’s] more like fire, between you two and the sheets, or washer, car [or] kitchen counter. This song talks about that—note, “I was lost until I found myself inside of you.” The dedication chorus can be backed up by the lines, “This is faithfulness at its finest” and “I've had you so many times, but you know I could never get enough.” It's clear to see this song was intended to be dedicated to someone, but as the album progresses, you find that [sometimes] how you feel can do nothing to affect actual reality. Also, did I mention that “O.G. Loko” stands for the now illegal, original Four Loko drink?

“Ben Threw”

There is no spelling typo here; Ben is my cat that I considered my child, and Alan [Ashby] considered his godson. This is one of the songs that Alan and I actually had completed before we joined Of Mice & Men when working on my new project. The overcast of the entire track could be defined by the lyrics, “I don't really think that you've ever walked a mile in my shoes. I don't really think that you know what I've been through.” It's simply talking to every single person that has ever opened their mouth about things they have no idea about. It's laughing at the fact that people talk and talk and talk, when all in all, what they are saying compares nothing to the actual truth. You don't live someone else's life; you have no right to judge them; you are not better than them; you have no idea what that person has experienced or the facts behind the stories that are told. It's simple: You have no idea what some people have been through, [so] live your own life instead of wasting it on assuming things about other people’s [lives]. Less talking, more enjoying, more living.

“Let Live”

This song contains one of my favorite choruses [on] the entire album. Shayley [Bourget, bassist/clean vocalist]really hit the nail on the head wrapping up the entire meaning of this one: “I was all for you, you fell over my love, I just can't afford it this time.” You could also translate that into, “I was 100% yours. I loved you, but you took my love—and how I felt for you—for granted and stabbed me in the back. Now you want another chance, but I can't afford to let you ruin me.” It starts off almost like a love story, explaining about meeting and falling for someone that has changed everything for you, and made everything in life perfect. But as the song continues, I use words like “fake, lie, dying” to show how this once-“perfect and wonderful” thing was transformed and its true form showed itself.

The song [expresses] that someone was lying the entire time this supposed mutual feeling was shared. The words “know what I deserve, know that I should let you go, this is me, letting you go” really mean everything at this point. As the song slows down, Shay and I wanted to make it feel like you were literally letting [go of] this heartbreak [and] this memory. You care about someone so much, and they do something to completely and blatantly hurt you, [so] you have to move on and do something for yourself.

“Still YDG'N”

This song is so extremely self-explanatory, it's ridiculous. When in the studio, I was swamped with writing, and asked Alan if he wanted to work on lyrics for this one. All except for maybe a sentence or so were solely his own. It's one of my favorite tracks on the record. The song talks about clearly knowing someone is doing you wrong, and you are simply over it. You're not going to waste any more time, heart or air on them, because they have cheated you more than once and you have had enough. Someone can only apologize so many times, before their actions cry out louder than any of their words.

This song is dedicated to anyone who has ever had someone rip the very ground out from below their feet, leaving them with nothing. Stay planted; everything works out in the end and works out for a reason.

“My Understandings”

Shayley, Shayley, Shayley. I don't find it wrong to brag about one of my own band members. This man can sing, and I believe he really shows it here. This is my favorite track on the entire album, and is one I play over and over again, wishing my voice wasn't in the background. You can almost think of this song as a conversation from a significant other to ourselves. The girl repeating, “I don't mind it, I don't mind if you're overrated, or if you're staring at the edge of the world,” talking about exactly what we do, exactly how we live our lives. Always on the run, always on the road, traveling the world. Being a shadow, moving about, trying to fill the void we have always been searching for. “But I can see that it has to be you, love” is claiming that no matter what, it's you, it's real and it's something that's been so solidified nothing could move it. As the song begins to soar, Shayley belts out, “If we climb this high, I swear we'll never die.” He screams that if the two can make it as far as they have been, if they can overcome [their] obstacles, then there is nothing to lose, nowhere to fall from, no way to ever come down from the pinnacle [they've] reached.

“Ohioisonfire”

You can write an entire album about whatever you'd like—”You think you know about me? Well, I think you're nothing. False words, fall dead”—but it still doesn't make it relevant if everything you are singing about is completely untrue. And still won't affect the listener if you mean absolutely nothing at all to them. You know you are over a person or group of people when you don't even hate them anymore. People have made statements about people being better off dead, and thinking they could play God, blah blah blah. So we wrote this little doo-wop just to prove the point that we are still here, and that I am still here, still kicking. I say in the song repeatedly, “I'm here, alive, and I'm relentless, I'm relentless, I'm relentless,” and I mean it with the utmost importance that I'm not going anywhere. It's going to take more than a little open heart surgery, a fork in the road or a teenage angst song or two to stop myself and Of Mice & Men.

“Product Of A Murderer”

This one hits home every time I hear it. To be 100 percent honest, this entire song is about addiction to any kind of substance, [such as] alcohol or drugs. Shayley and I heard this song as something dark, but we wanted to make more of it—hence the ending, which will come soon enough. People I know, people I love and myself have battled the life-threatening, hurtful, bitter and heartless enemy of addiction to substances. The addiction to something that will make you do things you shouldn't or would never think of: “I'll change face, to get what I crave.” It's hard for people to realize that the simple craving of a human being for something more can ruin his or her life, relationships [or] dreams. We have lived this, we have experienced this, we have had “cold sweats, the pain, the skin crawling, the shame….” from the burden of addiction.

The end of this song is where we wanted the “more” to come in—the hope, the light at the end of the tunnel. We really want people to know that they can overcome this. There is help for those in need, there is hope for those that are scared of this world and those that want to numb the very life that they are blessed with. There is something more; there is something worth living for. There is no reason to be another product of something that kills, steals and destroys—no reason to be another victim of a murderer, thief or liar like an addictive substance. There's hope, and we want to make that something that's beyond easily accessible for anyone who listens.

“Repeating Apologies”

[The] first time I heard this song was in San Jose, California, when Alan called me and said, “Dude, I just wrote one of the coolest things, I'm coming over and you gotta listen and tell me what you think!” Mind you, this was at 11 p.m., and we were going to meet the very next morning anyways to practice some new material. He drove 20 minutes, we listened in his car and six months later it ended up on the Of Mice & Men album! The words to this one are so straightforward, so raw. I can imagine playing this live and completely breaking down. You listen to the entire track, and it sounds as if we are singing and screaming at the listener or [screaming] out to someone else, because we want desperately for them to come back to us: “Looking back at the mistakes I've made, please come home to me, I'll show you truth, I'm all for you.” We are begging, pleading for this person to be with us again. We have done something unforgivable, something to make them want nothing to do with us anymore, [and] we are completely miserable and sick with what we have done and will do anything to make it better.

The song slows down [at the lyrics] “I hope you know, I hope you know, I've never done this before” [and is] followed by a distant scream [from me in which I state] “You've ruined me” and then, “I bet you're sorry, you've lied to my face.” One last line closes the song, and that is the most important [thing] for [listeners] to understand: “All these words that I've said are the words that I wanted to hear from you to me.”  This is stating that every word in this song is exactly what I was waiting for, and obviously was exactly what never came.

“The Great Hendowski”

First and foremost, this song is named after a good friend of mine, Alex Hendowski, and it was in his house we created about a quarter of the material for The Flood. We couldn't think of a name for this one, so it was obvious to name it after someone close, right? The guys originally gave me heat for the lyrics, because the whole first line is literally talking about a bum: “I met a guy with some coins in his can.” Cheesy, I know, but I wanted to tell a story, almost like narrating: “He looked up to me and asked, how can you smile with your lips wrapped around a loaded gun, look at this life, is this all we've got?” He is crying out, asking how I can go through my day with a smile on my face, knowing death could be around every corner. Asking me to look at life, and wondering if this is all there is to it.

When I start in on the next verse I sing to him about what is written in red in the Bible. In most Bibles, anything that Jesus said was quoted with red ink. (“Read this book, you were meant to live, it all means so much to me, but note what's written in red.”) I told him about how it all meant something important, but to especially note what Jesus said. No matter what you believe, or if you even believe He existed, you can read what He said to people and clearly see the same repeated subject: love. He spoke about it, shared it, lived it and wanted everyone to experience it. “There's no hole inside, no time that's long enough, there's nothing that can't be covered with love.” This song is about hope, love and seeing the beauty in life. There's no reason to give up, and there is no one too lost that love cannot reach. I truly believe it's about time people start spreading a little more of this.

“I'm A Monster”

I recorded this song quicker than any other on the album. Within an hour, I went from being outside on the phone with someone, to that phone being thrown into the woods, to inside with the entire song finished. We all had a lot of fun working around this one, and it, too, is another track that Alan had thought up and we polished off. The lyrics speak for themselves, and the song pretty much sums up every “negative” note on the album with this: “I'm so sick of your kind, get out of my life.” I'm going to leave this one at that. But like Gaga would say, “That boy is a monster.”

“When You Can't Sleep at Night”

Shayley really outdid himself on this one; he came up with the entire song, and used it as a blank page to really spill a lot. The message conveyed is something that we in the band all have experienced and understand, so this track making the album had to happen. It's titled “When You Can't Sleep at Night” because even as sad as it may sound, it's full of compassion, reassurance and love—a lullaby of sorts. The line, “Here in this world, I'm awaked with mistakes but it's love that keeps fueling me” says so much. Followed by, “I know I'm not that perfect, but you stay awhile baby, then you will see.” Shay is really explaining that he knows things may not be the best—things may be shaky or rough, but love can overcome that. And the bond between two people can overcome anything.

You have something golden; you hold onto it. You find something special, live in it. Time should never be an issue. You miss that someone so much it hurts? Then listen to this song when you can't sleep at night.