October 22, 2024 • 27 mins
Foxing is a rock band from St. Louis. They are currently on tour celebrating their new album Foxing. For this episode, Eric Hudson and Conor Murphy break down the song "Greyhound."
Songs Out Loud presents isolated vocal and instrument tracks, along with personal narratives from the songwriters, as a documentary-style look into the creative process.
Songs Out Loud is produced by Aaron Doerr.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
My name is Eric. I produce, engineer, mix, and play guitar in Foxing.
(00:11):
It sounded more almost like a sound that you can't describe.
I think whenever we write songs, you know, we kind of know that we're going to be revising each other's stuff.
My name is Connor Murphy and I sing in Foxing.
(00:34):
You know, you take this like catchy thing and you disassemble it and then you reassemble it into something that's different but still like a catchy chorus.
Then we build off of that and then it creates a part and then we create another part and it just keeps snowballing into what it becomes.
(01:11):
Foxing is a rock band from St. Louis. They're currently in the middle of a 33 city tour in support of their fifth album titled Foxing.
You're listening to Songs Out Loud, a songs deconstruction podcast from St. Louis, Missouri. I'm Aaron Dorr.
The song Greyhound was born from a starting over process. A finished version of the song almost made it onto their previous album. And while it never did just fit right...
(01:41):
We ended up not using it. It was cut from the album.
The song's basic parts were able to withstand a major overhaul in the writing sessions for their new album. Here's Eric taking it back to the beginning.
Greyhound at the time was called Forever Damned and I had re-listened to the very original demo of it before Draw Down the Moon.
(02:03):
It was basically just a drum beat and that descending synth line that starts the song. I just really liked it. I always really liked it.
I always thought that there was something in that song that we just hadn't unlocked or maybe we just hadn't treated it right in the Draw Down the Moon era. It just wasn't meant to be in that group of songs.
The idea of the song as it was at that point was kind of at a time where there was nuclear... there always is. There's some kind of nuclear scare happening where it's just this existential kind of... the world is always potentially about to end.
(02:46):
I remember thinking about it while I was on Cherokee Street in St. Louis.
And just the idea that everybody I'm looking at around me, you know, I'll be dead. And then also the idea that everybody that's younger than me will never get to be my age or older or my parents' age or something like that.
(03:15):
And then just the thought that I've found people in my life that I love and even if I died and they died and everybody died, that on my end I would still be happy because I got to find those connections.
(03:38):
Which is sort of the idea of Draw Down the Moon. Everything is so terrible around us all the time but you focus on your connections to other people and it makes it feel palatable.
At one point we were talking about, or I was talking about, I wanted it to be a theater, a theatrical kind of like Bette Midler belting something out. Barbara Streisand or something.
(04:09):
So that was that idea. And then when it came time to... we ended up not using it. It was cut from the album. That idea didn't really fit any of the themes for this album, the self-titled album.
(04:32):
And also I think we always wanted the vocal melody to be different than that. We didn't want it to be as dramatic and soaring.
And so adapting it to this album it became more about a retrospective, like looking at the last ten years of touring and living and wondering if it was all worth it. Still kind of the same idea though that it's like, it's the connections that make it all worth it. Even if the end result feels like it was all meaningless I guess.
(05:10):
And so I kind of reimagined it with a more shoegaze-y type of vibe I guess. With the slapback snare.
And I wanted to put a true guitar riff over it. On top of the synth line. And I had just gotten a whammy pedal for the first time.
(05:40):
And I wanted to find ways essentially of using a whammy that wasn't in the sort of the way you think of whammy typically, which is like Tom Morello or something like that.
I wanted to basically find a way of playing sort of like an indie rock guitar part that instead of sounding very obviously like a whammy sounded more almost like a sound that you can't describe.
(06:12):
The underlying melody of it I think is like a really nice melodic line, but when you throw in all of the different sort of like whammy expression hits on it, it becomes this very like glitchy...
I always like to describe it as like a... to me it sounds like a robot crying.
(06:42):
It's a weird sounding part and it's also very simple. Like I'm not actually playing something that's hard to play like picking wise or like finger wise. It's just like the coordination between all of like the whammy hits and like you know you have to like kind of trigger them at the right time with your foot.
It becomes like a very difficult and weird way to play guitar that I just wasn't used to.
(07:08):
Whenever Eric made the guitar part with the whammy guitar part, there was like this relief of... I remember thinking it reminded me of like in Money for Nothing by Dire Straits how like the money for nothing in chicks for free part.
(07:29):
It's like it's separate, it's got space so that you can hear like the riff that is a really you know solid riff that kind of takes the... it's like that part of that song is kind of the chorus of it even though there's a chorus that comes right after it.
(07:50):
Like that's the most memorable moment of it and I remember feeling this relief of like oh this is finally like a song that has this guitar chorus that we don't usually ever have.
And so I just had the line and it feels like I'm in a dream that's described by a friend that I am in and have no interest in here.
(08:20):
It means nothing to me.
And it made me realize like what the it means nothing to me meant.
It's like what does it even mean that I can reflect on all of this? None of that matters.
(08:42):
You know it's... time is linear it just doesn't matter what I feel about those things it's just I'm existing in all of it.
It means nothing to me. So it's that line and also I've always wanted to try to get this idea across of you know it's I think a cliche of like hearing somebody describe a dream and you're like I don't care.
(09:05):
And sometimes you're in the dream and you're like well that's not even me that's your that's your dream that I'm in. I don't care.
It means nothing to me.
(09:39):
It means nothing to me.
I think whenever we write songs you know we kind of know that we're going to be revising each other's stuff.
We've gotten really good at understanding that whatever you bring to the group is not what it's going to end up being.
(10:07):
Even if you have a very clear idea in your head that you think it should be a certain way.
You know maybe you feel like you're making a compromise at the time but once you've kind of let go of you know your expectations and sort of like your idea of what it should be.
The song is made better because you know we're I think for the most part pretty good at trusting each other's instincts on where a song should go.
(10:41):
Yeah I think we I think we communicate I would say in like three distinct ways.
The first being on like an emotional level as like collaborators and as very close friends.
Then second being that we communicate in terms of preference and that I think that one is where the argument kind of comes into play a lot of times because we have different we have different approaches to how to pull off a subject matter.
(11:12):
And then the third is speaking in like you know theoretical terms like using music theory we're able to talk in that way and that's that's why a lot of times you know if we use the key of D quite a bit.
A lot of times that's because Eric is recognizing that I can sing well in the key you know in D minor for instance.
(11:33):
Like we have songs that it's like I know you can pull this off if we have it in this key or if I bring a song and it's like I don't think your voice sounds great in this key what if we change the key of the song.
But I think we're both we've both gotten very good at being able to balance those things.
Yeah. I think whenever I'm talking about things I tend to think more about like how does it feel to listen to as opposed to how do we make this song sound like that song.
(12:07):
Like how does it feel to listen to you know be quiet and drive by death tones.
As opposed to how do we make this song sound like that song.
And that was something that I didn't really ever think about even clarifying until I realized like oh like anytime I'm making references to other things everybody is interpreting that as let's try to make it sound like that thing.
(12:51):
I think it used to be for me that writing heavy subject matter and especially like playing it live it became this form of therapy.
(13:21):
I think at this point the thing that drives me forward to write things that are heavier is because in the writing process it feels very cathartic and therapeutic.
I think that's the biggest difference at this point in my life versus earlier in life when I was writing these things because it was like a form of like when we play it live it will be so special.
(13:55):
I don't know if you feel that way Eric.
Yeah I think whenever we play playing these things live for me like it is a it's kind of like when you make a song and it takes on a life of its own outside of like what you had originally intended.
(14:17):
And you're seeing people coming to your shows and sort of like reacting to you know whatever it means to them almost like separate from from what it means to you and from what you remember about the process of writing it and what it meant to you during that time.
(14:47):
I think I think that the vocal loops came out of experimenting with something like what what would happen if we took this part of the song and made a chorus that is completely sample.
(15:17):
You know you take this like catchy thing and you disassemble it and then you reassemble it into something that's different but still like a catchy.
(15:45):
Chorus and again that's that's a really fun part of it because it's it's like well let's just try things until we get there rather than being more theoretical about it.
And I think a lot of times when we have theoretical conversations that's where we get lost.
In each other's intention or idea.
(16:06):
So yeah the the wall of sound on Greyhound to me I don't know how you feel Eric but to me that that's those are the situations that I feel like we're best at a lot of times where we can really just go how do we achieve this and also a lot of times it's like the most fun part because we're just experimenting with things to achieve the same idea.
(16:30):
Yeah yeah I agree.
I mean I think for us like the parts of whenever we kind of just stop talking in theoreticals and we just decide hey I'm just gonna like fuck around over this or like I'm gonna just give me like an hour to you know we're gonna do this.
(17:03):
An hour to you know loop like some weird ambient sounds or like Connor will be like I'm gonna take this vocal part and chop it up or I'm gonna you know mess with the drum beat or you know whatever whatever the thing is I feel like eventually it just doesn't even really matter what you're talking about because what ultimately needs to happen is one of you needs to sit down and put something down.
(17:33):
And your way of communicating at that point becomes okay I did this so I sort of volleyed the ball over to you now you know what are you what are you gonna do to respond to what I just did and so the communication at that point becomes less about you know we're not talking to each other we're actually just pressing record on something and doing something and then the other reacts and then we build off of that and then we're just like oh yeah I'm gonna do this.
(18:03):
And then we build off of that and then it creates a part and then we create another part and it just keeps you know snowballing into what it becomes.
(18:24):
Foxing closes their 33 city tour with a hometown show at the pageant on Saturday November 2.
Thank you Aaron, good to talk to you.
You can support them by?
I think just go into a show if you're if we're coming to your city and then yeah just word of mouth and showing it to your friend.
(18:48):
If you're extremely wealthy you could just write a check. I mean yeah on a serious level I mean honestly just go to a show and if you want to you can buy a shirt or something.
You know I think music especially for mid-sized bands is in a really weird spot and so just going to see more mid-sized and smaller bands is I think more important now than it's ever been.
(19:18):
And now the song Greyhound in its entirety or go find the album somewhere and give it a listen. This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(19:48):
This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(20:18):
This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(20:48):
And there's nothing I can do but cry.
There's nothing I can do but cry.
So while I find my telephone, look at how beautiful my telephone can be.
Look at how he loves me.
(21:09):
Look at how he loves me.
I feel like I'm in a dream that's described by a friend.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(21:36):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(22:04):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I had a dream of the present here and past like a blue bird grazing in the table.
A table rock oversized in undefined.
(22:26):
I had a chance to remember what was wrong but the wrong was still to come.
So the well had run aground, hearing breaths over time.
It sued itself like a child until it disintegrated.
I admit it meant nothing to me.
(23:12):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(23:45):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(24:15):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(24:45):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(25:12):
I've been feeling like my peak is in my past.
Am I laid to stag well trapped in the coral now?
Dropping everything I love to the bottom of the pond.
Just to free my fingers up by the polyps off.
But the well is in the way of just a suffocating break.
(25:35):
Every spirit, every vinyl sign.
We'll get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
(25:58):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(26:20):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(26:50):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(27:20):
I am in but I'm not interested.
My name is Eric. I produce, engineer, mix, and play guitar in Foxing.
(00:11):
It sounded more almost like a sound that you can't describe.
I think whenever we write songs, you know, we kind of know that we're going to be revising each other's stuff.
My name is Connor Murphy and I sing in Foxing.
(00:34):
You know, you take this like catchy thing and you disassemble it and then you reassemble it into something that's different but still like a catchy chorus.
Then we build off of that and then it creates a part and then we create another part and it just keeps snowballing into what it becomes.
(01:11):
Foxing is a rock band from St. Louis. They're currently in the middle of a 33 city tour in support of their fifth album titled Foxing.
You're listening to Songs Out Loud, a songs deconstruction podcast from St. Louis, Missouri. I'm Aaron Dorr.
The song Greyhound was born from a starting over process. A finished version of the song almost made it onto their previous album. And while it never did just fit right...
(01:41):
We ended up not using it. It was cut from the album.
The song's basic parts were able to withstand a major overhaul in the writing sessions for their new album. Here's Eric taking it back to the beginning.
Greyhound at the time was called Forever Damned and I had re-listened to the very original demo of it before Draw Down the Moon.
(02:03):
It was basically just a drum beat and that descending synth line that starts the song. I just really liked it. I always really liked it.
I always thought that there was something in that song that we just hadn't unlocked or maybe we just hadn't treated it right in the Draw Down the Moon era. It just wasn't meant to be in that group of songs.
The idea of the song as it was at that point was kind of at a time where there was nuclear... there always is. There's some kind of nuclear scare happening where it's just this existential kind of... the world is always potentially about to end.
(02:46):
I remember thinking about it while I was on Cherokee Street in St. Louis.
And just the idea that everybody I'm looking at around me, you know, I'll be dead. And then also the idea that everybody that's younger than me will never get to be my age or older or my parents' age or something like that.
(03:15):
And then just the thought that I've found people in my life that I love and even if I died and they died and everybody died, that on my end I would still be happy because I got to find those connections.
(03:38):
Which is sort of the idea of Draw Down the Moon. Everything is so terrible around us all the time but you focus on your connections to other people and it makes it feel palatable.
At one point we were talking about, or I was talking about, I wanted it to be a theater, a theatrical kind of like Bette Midler belting something out. Barbara Streisand or something.
(04:09):
So that was that idea. And then when it came time to... we ended up not using it. It was cut from the album. That idea didn't really fit any of the themes for this album, the self-titled album.
(04:32):
And also I think we always wanted the vocal melody to be different than that. We didn't want it to be as dramatic and soaring.
And so adapting it to this album it became more about a retrospective, like looking at the last ten years of touring and living and wondering if it was all worth it. Still kind of the same idea though that it's like, it's the connections that make it all worth it. Even if the end result feels like it was all meaningless I guess.
(05:10):
And so I kind of reimagined it with a more shoegaze-y type of vibe I guess. With the slapback snare.
And I wanted to put a true guitar riff over it. On top of the synth line. And I had just gotten a whammy pedal for the first time.
(05:40):
And I wanted to find ways essentially of using a whammy that wasn't in the sort of the way you think of whammy typically, which is like Tom Morello or something like that.
I wanted to basically find a way of playing sort of like an indie rock guitar part that instead of sounding very obviously like a whammy sounded more almost like a sound that you can't describe.
(06:12):
The underlying melody of it I think is like a really nice melodic line, but when you throw in all of the different sort of like whammy expression hits on it, it becomes this very like glitchy...
I always like to describe it as like a... to me it sounds like a robot crying.
(06:42):
It's a weird sounding part and it's also very simple. Like I'm not actually playing something that's hard to play like picking wise or like finger wise. It's just like the coordination between all of like the whammy hits and like you know you have to like kind of trigger them at the right time with your foot.
It becomes like a very difficult and weird way to play guitar that I just wasn't used to.
(07:08):
Whenever Eric made the guitar part with the whammy guitar part, there was like this relief of... I remember thinking it reminded me of like in Money for Nothing by Dire Straits how like the money for nothing in chicks for free part.
(07:29):
It's like it's separate, it's got space so that you can hear like the riff that is a really you know solid riff that kind of takes the... it's like that part of that song is kind of the chorus of it even though there's a chorus that comes right after it.
(07:50):
Like that's the most memorable moment of it and I remember feeling this relief of like oh this is finally like a song that has this guitar chorus that we don't usually ever have.
And so I just had the line and it feels like I'm in a dream that's described by a friend that I am in and have no interest in here.
(08:20):
It means nothing to me.
And it made me realize like what the it means nothing to me meant.
It's like what does it even mean that I can reflect on all of this? None of that matters.
(08:42):
You know it's... time is linear it just doesn't matter what I feel about those things it's just I'm existing in all of it.
It means nothing to me. So it's that line and also I've always wanted to try to get this idea across of you know it's I think a cliche of like hearing somebody describe a dream and you're like I don't care.
(09:05):
And sometimes you're in the dream and you're like well that's not even me that's your that's your dream that I'm in. I don't care.
It means nothing to me.
(09:39):
It means nothing to me.
I think whenever we write songs you know we kind of know that we're going to be revising each other's stuff.
We've gotten really good at understanding that whatever you bring to the group is not what it's going to end up being.
(10:07):
Even if you have a very clear idea in your head that you think it should be a certain way.
You know maybe you feel like you're making a compromise at the time but once you've kind of let go of you know your expectations and sort of like your idea of what it should be.
The song is made better because you know we're I think for the most part pretty good at trusting each other's instincts on where a song should go.
(10:41):
Yeah I think we I think we communicate I would say in like three distinct ways.
The first being on like an emotional level as like collaborators and as very close friends.
Then second being that we communicate in terms of preference and that I think that one is where the argument kind of comes into play a lot of times because we have different we have different approaches to how to pull off a subject matter.
(11:12):
And then the third is speaking in like you know theoretical terms like using music theory we're able to talk in that way and that's that's why a lot of times you know if we use the key of D quite a bit.
A lot of times that's because Eric is recognizing that I can sing well in the key you know in D minor for instance.
(11:33):
Like we have songs that it's like I know you can pull this off if we have it in this key or if I bring a song and it's like I don't think your voice sounds great in this key what if we change the key of the song.
But I think we're both we've both gotten very good at being able to balance those things.
Yeah. I think whenever I'm talking about things I tend to think more about like how does it feel to listen to as opposed to how do we make this song sound like that song.
(12:07):
Like how does it feel to listen to you know be quiet and drive by death tones.
As opposed to how do we make this song sound like that song.
And that was something that I didn't really ever think about even clarifying until I realized like oh like anytime I'm making references to other things everybody is interpreting that as let's try to make it sound like that thing.
(12:51):
I think it used to be for me that writing heavy subject matter and especially like playing it live it became this form of therapy.
(13:21):
I think at this point the thing that drives me forward to write things that are heavier is because in the writing process it feels very cathartic and therapeutic.
I think that's the biggest difference at this point in my life versus earlier in life when I was writing these things because it was like a form of like when we play it live it will be so special.
(13:55):
I don't know if you feel that way Eric.
Yeah I think whenever we play playing these things live for me like it is a it's kind of like when you make a song and it takes on a life of its own outside of like what you had originally intended.
(14:17):
And you're seeing people coming to your shows and sort of like reacting to you know whatever it means to them almost like separate from from what it means to you and from what you remember about the process of writing it and what it meant to you during that time.
(14:47):
I think I think that the vocal loops came out of experimenting with something like what what would happen if we took this part of the song and made a chorus that is completely sample.
(15:17):
You know you take this like catchy thing and you disassemble it and then you reassemble it into something that's different but still like a catchy.
(15:45):
Chorus and again that's that's a really fun part of it because it's it's like well let's just try things until we get there rather than being more theoretical about it.
And I think a lot of times when we have theoretical conversations that's where we get lost.
In each other's intention or idea.
(16:06):
So yeah the the wall of sound on Greyhound to me I don't know how you feel Eric but to me that that's those are the situations that I feel like we're best at a lot of times where we can really just go how do we achieve this and also a lot of times it's like the most fun part because we're just experimenting with things to achieve the same idea.
(16:30):
Yeah yeah I agree.
I mean I think for us like the parts of whenever we kind of just stop talking in theoreticals and we just decide hey I'm just gonna like fuck around over this or like I'm gonna just give me like an hour to you know we're gonna do this.
(17:03):
An hour to you know loop like some weird ambient sounds or like Connor will be like I'm gonna take this vocal part and chop it up or I'm gonna you know mess with the drum beat or you know whatever whatever the thing is I feel like eventually it just doesn't even really matter what you're talking about because what ultimately needs to happen is one of you needs to sit down and put something down.
(17:33):
And your way of communicating at that point becomes okay I did this so I sort of volleyed the ball over to you now you know what are you what are you gonna do to respond to what I just did and so the communication at that point becomes less about you know we're not talking to each other we're actually just pressing record on something and doing something and then the other reacts and then we build off of that and then we're just like oh yeah I'm gonna do this.
(18:03):
And then we build off of that and then it creates a part and then we create another part and it just keeps you know snowballing into what it becomes.
(18:24):
Foxing closes their 33 city tour with a hometown show at the pageant on Saturday November 2.
Thank you Aaron, good to talk to you.
You can support them by?
I think just go into a show if you're if we're coming to your city and then yeah just word of mouth and showing it to your friend.
(18:48):
If you're extremely wealthy you could just write a check. I mean yeah on a serious level I mean honestly just go to a show and if you want to you can buy a shirt or something.
You know I think music especially for mid-sized bands is in a really weird spot and so just going to see more mid-sized and smaller bands is I think more important now than it's ever been.
(19:18):
And now the song Greyhound in its entirety or go find the album somewhere and give it a listen. This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(19:48):
This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(20:18):
This has been a Songs Out Loud production by Aaron Dorr.
(20:48):
And there's nothing I can do but cry.
There's nothing I can do but cry.
So while I find my telephone, look at how beautiful my telephone can be.
Look at how he loves me.
(21:09):
Look at how he loves me.
I feel like I'm in a dream that's described by a friend.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(21:36):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(22:04):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I had a dream of the present here and past like a blue bird grazing in the table.
A table rock oversized in undefined.
(22:26):
I had a chance to remember what was wrong but the wrong was still to come.
So the well had run aground, hearing breaths over time.
It sued itself like a child until it disintegrated.
I admit it meant nothing to me.
(23:12):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(23:45):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(24:15):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(24:45):
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
I am in but I'm not interested.
(25:12):
I've been feeling like my peak is in my past.
Am I laid to stag well trapped in the coral now?
Dropping everything I love to the bottom of the pond.
Just to free my fingers up by the polyps off.
But the well is in the way of just a suffocating break.
(25:35):
Every spirit, every vinyl sign.
We'll get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
We will get fulter again.
(25:58):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(26:20):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(26:50):
I am in but I'm not interested.
(27:20):
I am in but I'm not interested.
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