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“Mmmmmm…good song.” -Ryan Deloria
This song is about the apocalypse, believe it or not. It’s also got an environmentalist message – specifically with the “we’re too late, they said 12 years ago” line. That’s in reference to a study David found saying climate change would be irreversible in 12 years. This was an easy pick to put before Marauder on the EP. Since Marauder is about going into space and leaving Earth behind, we figured an apocalypse would be a good enough reason to do that. The EP kind of follows a loose story if you think about it.
It started when David was listening to some Ventures and Pixies and decided to write something with a surf-rock tinge. He wrote the verse bass riff and added some previously-written material to it. Classic David writing: smoosh all the riffs you’ve written into one song and figure out how to make them fit. This was our most energetic song at the time, and the first time we really felt like we had come into our own sound for good.
This song was originally significantly different, and first played without Keegan. It’s maybe the song that has changed most over time. It had a slower opening on acoustic, and the main riff was just a small section of the song. TOTALLY different. David also originally sang this one for our first few performances. Once he got his tonsils out and his voice changed, it became clear Keegan’s voice fit the track a lot better.
It really came together when Keegan came to the next practice and said all of it was bad except for the last part. We decided to scrap the whole thing and just build off of that last bit. David wrote the rest of the song in one night after that, and it came together relatively quickly at practice soon after. “I say hello to you” was there from the very start, as you can hear in our first demo.
The name Apocalypse Hill was thought up by Keegan because all we knew was that we wanted the word “hill” in the title, after using the working title Surf Rock.
Fun fact: the second prechorus lyric used to go: “Now we swerve out of control,” but David just straight up forgot that in the studio and sang the first prechorus line there instead. None of us even noticed until after the EP came out.
[Verse]
Something’s coming over the ridge
A meteor or fire above
I say hello, to you
They’re standing on apocalypse hill
We’re scrambling around in the pit
They’ve come to collect, their dues
[Pre-chorus]
Now what’s left is buried in snow
[Verse]
Something’s burning up in the air
“We’re too late,” we said 12 years ago
I’m not supposed to be here
Unrest rumbles under the ground
The fault lines aren’t the only problem now
I know just what to do
[Bridge]
Oh, the night before me
Falls into a lulling
Sleep it cannot open
Eyes they’re unifying
Dancing dirt around me
Everybody’s happy
Courthouse marshal burning
Chaos quite unnerving
Money for the pope and
Plastic for a fool’s gold
Turn it upside down and
Dawn a skin-tied crown of-
[Pre-chorus]
Now what’s left is buried in snow
Here is the first performance of this song, sans Keegan. It’s COMPLETELY different, and not even recognizable till like halfway through. Maybe we’ll reuse that beginning part someday, it’s actually pretty cool. It was taken from an earlier song David had started writing called Agatha. This original version of Apocalypse Hill was just called Surf Rock. From late 2019.
This is the first performance with Keegan around. Getting closer to the final song, but still with a totally different structure. December 2019, just before January was written.
And here’s us coming up with that midverse breakdown. That’s another Downcoast staple – most of our songs have one of these. Marauder, Dinner at Barkham’s, etc.
One of our first performances of the final song. With King Gizzard’s “People-Vultures” intro and a broken crash cymbal.
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This is the most fun song to play live off the EP and sometimes used as an opener or closer to our set. It’s the heaviest song in the set, especially when the riff kicks in after the chorus. It’s really easy to play too, which allows us to jump around more and feel the music.
Sometimes we like to extend out the bridge of the song and give Keegan a little bass solo or do a guitar solo battle between David and Ash. We use some riffs David wrote a couple years ago as an outro to the song, which we refer to as “DC Riffs.” We likely won’t stop playing this one for a long time.