Behind Song #1 "The Violence Within" (Patreon)

Hello me Hearties!

As I told you I wanted to take the time to tell you more about this first track and how it came to life! 

I just came back from 4 super intense recordings days for EXIT EDEN in Germany (oh my god this new album will be massive!!). Then I flew to Zagreb where Meek picked me up to then drive to Belgrade in Serbia to shoot another video for VISIONS OF ATLANTIS on 2 days! In between I flew to Paris to drop my passport to get my visa for the US tour.

Tomorrow we leave for Austria to have a chat with Metal Hammer and then we go to Northern German for another 2 day video shoot to create the last video for our new album!

Nothing happened for 2 years and now it feels like all is happening in one month haha! It's very demanding but so satisfying!! I love this intense life that makes you give the best of yourself in the most productive and precise way. I can't wait to see the results of the videos and to listen to the new EE with all our vocals 🤩

So, going back to the song. This is how we wrote "The Violence Within".

It all started with the verse melody which I came up with one day, back in 2016 (!). I stored that melody on my phone and I kept feeling connected to it, so I knew one day it would turn into a song. 

When Meek and I sat down to start working on my new project I immediately thought about this old idea. I sung it to him, he liked it! I sat at the piano and found the harmony to match with it.

We liked the ambience, we felt like  keeping this piano-voice approach as a start and then we had to imagine how it would develop... Meek heard in his mind the drum pattern that could follow this intro. He wrote it, then used the piano chords with guitar and bass to build what would become the first verse.

I liked the idea of repeating the same melody and same lyrics twice. It emphasizes for me the main issue this song is referring to: our mind and thoughts pushing us down. When we don't feel safe within ourselves because of all the dark thoughts and images we let our mind flirt with.

Once we had the verse, I sang the whole intro + verse on the mic and then naturally came out with the chorus melody. Once again, we searched for the harmonic progression together and then Meek built the instruments underneath. He's becoming better and better on the guitar though he never took any lessons! It's so great to watch him evolve and grow as a musician as well! 

Once we had the chorus, the structure of the song got clearer. After the second chorus Meek asked me "what do you hear should come next?". I was caught in the ambiance of the song and I told him, "I want a break down". Because this is what happens when you succumb to your dark thoughts, you have a mental breakdown, a crisis. You might lose yourself. And right before this breakdown, I heard this line "But I can't let go, of what's killing me". That's the statement launching the breakdown, that's the reason why we could easily remain stuck in depressive states.

Meek wrote the breakdown. Being both lovers of progressive metal, I let him have fun with patterns and rhythms to create the part as it is right now. Then, on top, I wanted to put a texture that would portray the dark thoughts, the brambles, the muddy dark creature crawling in our mind, hence this choice of sample and sounds. I imagined the character of the song to be trying to crawl out of a dark muddy cave, through branches....

...towards the light. I love contrasts and I wanted this dark breakdown to end in a beam of light and lightness. The character managed her way out of the cave and sees the light again after a very long time. (And yes I'm a very visual person, when I'm inspired by a piece of music I see images, a story, I create a movie in my mind haha, and this is my guideline from which derive lyrics, outfits and the visual universe going along the music). The lyrics flowed very naturally, conveying the idea of freedom from what keep hurting us: our own dark self. 

We ended the song with another chorus and created an outro where each element disappear one after the other mimicking the way thoughts get cleared out. 

When the whole song was written I could finally get to the lyrics. Though the main topic is quite dark, I always want to bring in a sense of hope and positivity. Hence this second verse stating clearly that pain doesn't have to be there all the time, that we can heal and reconnect to our inner joy.

All these topics are very precious to me. They are part of my own healing process. I discovered that we can control way more things in ourselves and life than we might think we can. We can control our thoughts and emotions. We can find a space where there are no such thoughts, we can identify where they come from. We can embrace them in a way that prevent them from controlling our mind and mood. And this brought me so much peace and harmony, so much lightness back! ✨

I naturally want to sing about this mental journey back to happy-land and most of VOA's lyrics are actually about this, in various ways 😄. Doing so, I hope I can help others on their own journey back to themselves. 🙏

Now, I will pack my suitcase for the US tour as we leave in a week but I won't get back home after the video shoot in Northern Germany!

 💠 Several more information:

To my Free Spirit's and Pirates still waiting for their unique hand-written lyrics: I am practicing and training but I keep making mistakes and I am not satisfied so I want to keep practicing more before I send them out. You will get them before our new album release, early May at the latest. I might be able to hand some of them to you in person on tour ;)

I want to welcome Joseph, Ian, Graham, José Adrian, Patrick, Ron, Jürgen, Wonyou, Joshua, Lenka, Tim, Jason, George, Brandon and Remy who came on board in 2022! Thank you so much for joining us!

Thank you all for your attention and I pray for the world to remember peace as war just started in Europe...

Take care my friends, more to come around the new VOA release, very soon!

With love, 

Clémentine