About two & a half years ago I was sitting on the steps inside my former manager’s Hollywood apartment jotting lyrics into my notes app to a song, humming softly to each line that popped into my head, all while Danny sat less than three feet to my left at the computer programing a track. This song started as an idea I had in passing about those who had lost their love & never recovered, those whose hearts had been truly & utterly “Obliterated.” Fast forward to today when I’m having my first ever international feature release with an artist I’ve come to call a friend, Hektor Mass!
Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m going to fill in the details from the last 2.5 years, I’m just currently in a bit of a state of disbelief that this song is finally seeing the light of day, especially in its current form!
If you don’t know songwriters there’s a little known fact about us that I think the outside world should know. Much like your Miranda Rights, anything you say or do can be used against you in a song. Thus many of us have hidden lists; in our phones, on our computers, in notebooks, on random post-it notes, of all the things we’ve heard in passing or all the thoughts that crossed our head that we think would make intriguing song ideas. As I mentioned above (see above), I had the idea for a completely decimated heart in passing. I’m not entirely sure how long it sat in my notes, but I don’t feel like it was there for that long before it got put to use.
The fire that ignited the idea for Obliterated, sonically, came from a song called “Lips on You” by Maroon 5. Danny, otherwise known as The Delta Mode, & I were driving around in Billie, our former manager’s, car & I had the aux. I put on the song & remarked about loving the production, to which Danny said “you know we should do something in the similar vein!” That was really all it took. We got back from BevMo & immediately got to work on the song.
I remember it not taking long to write. I remember it lyrically being a very stream of consciousness idea as Danny started to assemble the bones that would make up parts of the track you hear today. I’d pitch him lines, he’d tweak them lyrically or melodically or offer me another approach, but the song as a whole took about 30-45 minutes to write that day. I remember Danny & I had a long discussion regarding the use of the word “Obliterated” itself. At the time the idea was to do the song then potentially release it under The Delta Mode, so Danny’s concern was that German audiences, where he lives, wouldn’t be able to say/understand the word. My counterpoint was “good, make them look it up, drive more views to the song.” So the lyric stayed.
After the initial write was done Danny set up a small tracking mic in Billie’s closet. Truly a three foot by two foot space with a ceiling that sat about five and a half feet tall. For those that have never seen me in person, I’m a tall gent, 6’4” to be exact, so did I record vocals with my head cocked to the side, right up against the ceiling the whole time? You bet your ass I did.
The session itself happened at some point in the afternoon. I think I, myself, took a break & ventured down to Barry’s in Hollywood. By the time I got back Danny had taken Billie’s Ovation guitar & recorded a drop lick very reminiscent of Slash himself! Of course it had gone through compressors & filters galore to get from sounding like an acoustic guitar to an electric but parts of that guitar line are still present in the songs current form!
From there we had a very well produced demo, it got passed around amongst our friends & collaborators & everyone was head over heals for it, but I thought it was missing something. A second verse. See, at this point in time the song was just a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, & post chorus then it had a drop & would repeat everything save the verse a few times. I sat with the song for weeks trying to wrap my head around a second verse idea but I couldn’t for the life of me recapture the inspiration I had the afternoon it was written. So I took it to Evan Michael. Evan was very keen to write on the song, he loved the idea, the melody, etc. He was able to see the song from an outside perspective & find new angles to come at it with. And thus the second verse was born.
From here the song entered a series of disagreements. Danny would want one thing, I’d want another, we’d try to compromise to no avail; I am hardheaded after all. Danny himself claims to have done about a hundred different versions of the song but was never happy with it himself, so it was put on ice for about a year. The next time the song came up was to be under the newly minted Delta Mode, a group that expanded outside of just Danny & his brothers, in which the production would be cut back to the original demo, vocals would be recut, & the second verse would be added. However, it never came to be. Once again disagreements, misunderstandings, & life got in the way & the song was iced indefinitely.
Having finished that last paragraph I’d like to interject something here. Music is a creative medium, it is very personal. We all, as musicians & songwriters, want for our vision of a song, especially one that’s personal to us, to be our vision. It’s hard to let other people’s ideas in to that vision from time to time. No one is the bad guy in this situation, no one is to blame, we’re all on good terms still, there’s no need to take sides on any of this, it’s simply the music business. Got it? Okay, good. Onward we go.
Like I said, the song was on ice for quite a while. I had many friends asking when it’d be released or how & I honestly loved how much people loved the song, I knew it had to come out in some form. Enter fate.
A friend of mine from LA, who is a writer & artist began posting a lot of different things with a Spanish gent in LA. I was curious who he was as I’d never seen him in any of his stories in the past so I acquired. He told me his name was Hektor Mass a DJ/Producer in town from Barcelona whom he was showing around. I was told to check him out, so I did! I followed Hektor, added songs of his to my workout playlist, then we began to interact with one another over Instagram. This continued for a few months before I eventually ended up in Spain for Medusa during August of 2019 & who was the headliner for the opening party of Medusa Spain? Hektor Mass.
Unfortunately I missed Hektor’s set due to delays & I was honestly a little upset I wasn’t going to get to hear his music live or have the chance to meet him face to face. Call it manifestation or destiny or whatever but on the last night of Medusa who did I see at the bar? Hektor Mass. We struck up a brief conversation, I told him about “Obliterated” & he asked me to send his way. He loved the song but wanted to put his spin on it & make it his own.
From there I reconnected with Danny after about a year of distance & he sent over the stems for the original track and Hektor & I got to work in LA. Hektor wanted to keep a lot of the bones of the track, which we did, but this is the point in which we pulled Max Hurrell into the mix. Max is an incredibly talented young producer out of Adelaide, Australia who now resides in Los Angeles, someone I am also proud to call friend. Hektor, Max, & I sat down in small classroom studio at MI Hollywood & hashed out the song. We pulled up all stems, sorted through them, kept the ones we liked, ditched the ones we didn't, & began to move forward. At this point Hektor proposed a rewrite of the verse melody, siting that he wanted it to be more rhythmic with less space to give people something to dance to live. I struggled with the idea for a while, thinking I had to rewrite these lyrics I’d grown so attached to but in the end we were able to find a nice compromise! We pulled a lot of the same lyrics but added new ones in to fill the rhythmic chunks that were missing. We gutting the chorus instead opting for a verse, pre, chorus, verse, pre, chorus, drop, chorus, post chorus set-up!
Next we went to Capitol Records’ demo studios to retrack vocals. (Thanks Jenna!) It was honestly one of the most affirming yet grueling vocal sessions of my life. Max & Hektor were looking for a very specific vocal performance out of me, which after a while I believe they got! I sang higher & fuller than I think I have on most of my tracks & left the studio that night exhausted. I’m pretty sure we ended up cutting hours of just adlib vocal.
I went home to Nashville the next day but Max & Hektor continued working on the song over the next two to three weeks replacing a large chunk of the original track & adding a whole assortment of new melodic themes & ideas into the mix. I was blown away when they sent me the initial mix. Which we then sent off to Jonathan Roye here in Nashville to mix & then to Mike Monseur for master. Finally the song was complete!
After finalizing everything the song came out today, March 13th! There’s a lyric video here: