Rival Schools: Shot After Shot

Wring It Out
It started to come to me what kind of new songs Rival Schools should have and I felt this one had a good groove to it. The lyrics are about the desire to begin again in some way and it was very apt. It's speaking more about relationships and the trials and tribulations of that, but also to begin again and be able brush yourself off to move forward. That's a theme I revisit a lot.

Shot After Shot
This song is one that's really evolved with us getting back together. After United By Fate we did a demo under a different title with different lyrics. We'd been playing it live and the title was Sophia Loren. The words stuck out and of course she's a sexy lady from Italy. In the end we were making a video for the song and we got a call from the legal department over at Atlantic saying ‘you can't call the song Sophia Loren because we'll get sued’. So, we had to rename it, and it was such a mind-fuck. By the end of the video shoot we'd come up with Shot After Shot. At least it implies action and excitement. It went from this sexy Italian song to having this explosiveness about it...a funny evolution.

Big Waves
Big Waves is pretty much about being in over your head, having too much to handle. Like being out on a surfboard on the ocean and being scared shitless 'cause you don't know how to surf, and trying to figure how to get back in alive - which is a metaphor for a lot of big things in life. I had just been in Mexico, surfing and had been terrified. It was kind of a collaborative song, a lot of different parts came from different members, which was interesting.

Small Doses
This was more of a mellow one. Coming from hardcore, I think we always default to aggressive riffs, but one of the things I think Rival Schools do really well are these groovy, reggae jams. I had Small Doses from a while back but it was a very different vibe. We brought it up to speed with where we're at now and it has a little bit more of the reggae groove that Cache and Sam did really well. As for the lyrics, it’s like that Suicidal Tendencies song, Institutionalized: 'Just get me a fucking Pepsi, leave me alone, I'm fine.'

The Ghost Is Out There
This is another one that Ian ripped out and the whole band came in on. I saw this show called Psychic Kids and that sparked the idea of what a pain in the ass it must be to be psychic. What a burden, and I thought it was a funny idea for a song. As a closing track it sums up the whole story.