Hello friends, this is TJ McMaster from APLO, and welcome to our new blog which we've dubbed “The Sunbeam;” both because a lot of what we do is enveloped in our branding of the sun, as well as a little metaphor that this blog will hopefully shine a little piece of us, unto you. This specific post is going to showcase some of the work behind what made Let Me Stay happen: the composition, some influences of ours, our recording process, I mean what could possibly going on in our heads, right? Let's jump right into it!
Way back in 2021, APLO had just started playing together and we were in the process of finding our sound. We knew what we want, and we knew our influences. The matter at this point was simply putting it into action, learning each others' sound and becoming a tighter group (which we always strive to, even now). Anyway, at this point Billy and I were messing around in our storage room together trying to figure out some ideas for original music, seeing as how we didn't want to be stuck playing covers for too long. Billy played the keys part (which is honestly signature to his playing) and that groove became what you currently hear him playing on the track. We composed the chorus to sound really 'pretty' in contrast to the harsh, funky verse and I wrote the spaced out bridge to reel back the energy and build up more intensity to the last chorus.
After bringing the song to the band, we played around with it A LOT. It took us re-writing a lot of parts, horn lines, and changing what used to be a regular funk beat from the drums into a Dilla. I wish that was my idea but that was Ethan's, something about the tune just wasnt grooving hard enough and he took charge to figure out how to make the pocket even deeper. Fast forward many many months of playing it at gigs, testing it in front of crowds and to each other, it was finally time to record some releasable original music to the digital world in Fall 2022. After recording drums and bass, we moved onto Billy's iconic groove, then to guitar, the horn line and lastly vocals. Recording the vox were a lot of fun, with the spacey harmonies in the chorus and harsh verse/pre-chorus vocals; we really felt like we had serious music on our hands. One thing I need to make clear I was REALLY against at the time, though, were the gang vocals under Billy's belting at the end of the song. Who's idea for such a cheesy atrocity you ask? You guessed it, Ethan… I'm not going to lie, he proved me wrong with the gang vocals and they sounded so bad ass under Billy's belting.
Over the Winter of 2022-2023, Ethan and I went home from school to spend our time producing and mixing both Let Me Stay and ‘Special’ (oOoOo foreshadowing to a new release??). A lot of my personal influence for producing Let Me Stay was putting flange on the vocals and some slight flange on the drums from ‘Apollo’ (ironic) by St. Paul and The Broken Bones. Sonically, I wanted the mix to sound like B.T. by The Dip, or a mix between Chicago with the trippy vibiness of Mild High Club. That's when I started having fun with some synths (check them out in the background if you missed them the first listen!) I'm sure our other members have plenty more influences, so if I could ever get them on the blog sometime to tell y'all, I'll be sure to keep y'all in the know :).
Signing off here, and I hope yall enjoyed learning a bit about some of the behind-the-scenes of our new single, ‘Let Me Stay.’ If you haven't checked it out already, I HIGHLY suggest you do – we put our our hearts and souls onto this track. If you have heard it, please be sure to let us know what your favorite part was! I'll also be sure to link the Master to the track, as well as a lil' playlist we made with some of our influences for the track.
Cheers, fellow music lovers.
~TJ McMaster
P.S. Here's the Spotify Playlist for our influences!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/46b2K02PK0LGWTaUqC07kx?si=905f5326c57a4401