“A good friend of mine sent me the melodies in this song a couple months back as a gift, and I started writing the lyrics about longing for human contact. It turned out to be a song that’s more of a brain dump regarding the internet’s insidiousness, and how the fear of being lonely or insignificant has kept me and a lot of other people from letting go of the shallow illusion of security it creates. It’s ironic that at the same time, the internet also makes us feel small, and vulnerable. It’s even worse that over the last year, I dunno how we would’ve survived without it.
I’ve spent a lot of time during quarantine writing songs about artificial and impossible relationships, as part of a bigger story about an evolved teenager and her robot partner. This one reflects many of the sentiments that have come from trying to write that narrative. More soon.”
— Nick Woods
VIDEO EDITED/DIRECTED BY: BEN SARGENT
ANIMATIONS BY: WALKER DUBOIS
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Throughout the stay-at-home period, we’ve working on new material for a full-length and releasing singles to streaming services and YouTube to pass the time away from the road. Like many tracks released in 2021, “Hollow Comfort” was recorded in a mix of remote and in-studio sessions to maintain safe social distancing measures for the band and crew. This song’s lyrics hint at the disconnected connections that technology offers us, which can be vital in a time without true human contact. But, also asking at what cost does this technology come? This track features the new 5-piece lineup with recent addition Maura Weaver on 3rd guitar and vocals and was mixed by frequent collaborator Mike Kennerty (the All-American Rejects). The video was directed/edited by Ben Sargent with art direction and animation from Walker Dubois. Ben is our tour videographer and made all of the videos from the recent singles released in 2020 and 2021. Ben is also responsible for creating the multi-cam video setup that we use for live-streaming, which he runs remotely from Georgia while we jam at Nick’s studio in Wisconsin. Walker animated the video and provided art direction that inspired which vintage stock footage Ben chose to manipulate into the unsettling narrative playing out on the TV screen. In addition to collaborating on this video, Walker draws pretty much all of our merch and single art these days and has been working with Nick on a graphic novel companion for our upcoming full-length (release date TBD).