AJR Talk About How '100 Bad Days' Cured Their Writer's Block

Last month, AJR dropped their new single "100 Bad Days," and during a recent episode of Billboard's "How It Went Down," the trio explains how they came up with the song, admitting it cured a pretty bad case of the writer's block.

As Ryan Met puts it, the brothers were working on their album NeoTheater while studying at Columbia University, and they were having a tough time due to severe writer's block. "100 Bad Days" was the song to get them out of their creative drought. In fact, their "bad days" of writer's block was what led them to the song concept in the first place.

As far as the bad stories that illustrate each verse, Jack Met says they all came from their first year at Columbia. For instance, the opening line “Remember when we all got drunk? I ended up with two broke thumbs" pays homage to Jack's girlfriend, who really did break both of her thumbs during a particularly rambunctious night out.

But they didn't want "100 Bad Days" to be a party song. Instead, they wanted it to be the soundtrack to the comedown. “With ‘100 Bad Days,’ we said to each other, ‘Let's make this the finale, let's make this the last song that people play of the night,’” Jack says. “And so that's why we had this huge sweeping, horn filled, anthemic chorus.”

And as "extremely boring and cliche" as it sounds, the song is meant to make listeners "feel happy."

"This is really just a feel good, let's enjoy my life up to this point kind of song," Jack declares.

Watch the full interview here and listen to "100 Bad Days" below.

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