Nine Lashes Let the Music Guide Them on ‘Anthem for the Lonely’

Thousand Foot Krutch's Trevor McNevan co-produced Nine Lashes' full-length album, due out this Fall via Tooth & Nail Records, but we've got a first taste of 'Anthem For the Lonely,' a chunky, full-on aggro rock jam that's not dissimilar from Thousand Foot Krutch or Papa Roach. 'Anthem For the Lonely' is radio-ready and something tells us you'll be hearing a lot of Nine Lashes on the airwaves in the coming months.

For Nine Lashes, the songwriting process follows a distinct and clear pattern. The band comes up with melodies and riffs, and then vocalist Jeremy Dunn crafts lyrics that are steered by the way the music itself "speaks" to him. It's certainly an unorthodox method of writing, to say the least.

"Our songwriting process evolves over time, generated around the sound and the feel of the music, not necessarily the lyrics," vocalist Dunn told Noisecreep, opening up about how their songs unfold and develop. "I will have a vocal melody before we even have the lyrics. Then we'll go and listen and have the melody as a guideline and fill in the words with how the song makes me feel and think about."

'Anthem For the Lonely' was no exception to that rule for Nine Lashes. Dunn continued, "We had a riff that we liked, and took off with it. We had a song before we had any lyrics. I sat down in my room listening to the music and it sounded like this giant struggle. I saw this story play out in my head -- of a person going through a change, a struggle. Their life was being transformed, but they were still struggling. It is a process. This was the picture that the music painted for me when I heard it."

Dunn also revealed a funny little tidbit about 'Anthem For the Lonely,' which surrounded by the sounds of real life when being formulated. Dunn said, "There was some food crackling on a stove top in the background, a dishwasher yelling at the top of it's lungs. And somehow, amidst all that, we found something we felt was special with this song."