Although Dear You isn’t technically new to the scene (formed in 2010), their new EP I Can Only Blame Myself, which released last Tuesday definitely put them on the map in the pop-punk world. With so many bands popping up these days Dear You have proven that they are worth your time. Within the first day the band landed in the top #75 on the iTunes alternative charts, which was a career accomplishment. Not only that, but they have also proved that two guitar players, a vocalist with grit, and a drummer can record a phenomenal EP in a bedroom, and you wouldn’t have even known if I didn’t tell you myself. Vocalist Chris Roach gave us all of the details on each track of I Can Blame Myself which you can see below, and don’t forget to buy the album on iTunes here!
I Can Only Blame Myself
This song was born out of the idea around people changing, and being so close with someone and then somehow just drifting apart completely, whether over night or over the course of a certain time period. Louis and I actually worked on it together thematically, and he let me take over and just write about it, which was both fun and somewhat challenging. It’s hard for me to just say “I’m going to write about this” and then do it. The song is definitely heavily based on that idea, but in the end to me it evolved into thinking about my friends and this band in my life, and how one day it could actually be gone, and thats ultimately what I drew emotion from when we recorded the vocals. It’s such a scary thought that things can change and people can just let a grudge get in the way of all the great things you used to have with other people. The reoccurring line in the chorus that says “Will you still be around when I’m older?” refers to exactly how things change, and it goes on to say “What colors would you splash on all the gray and blacks that I offer?” which to me was a huge highlighter on the idea that sometimes life just gets really bland and dull, and all of the relationships and happiness in your life, all of that color, comes from the things you share with the people you love
Shipwreck
This song is so odd to me, because I always said I’d never write a song about my faith or religious beliefs. Not that this song is directly about theology, or anything. It’s more about a ton of judgment that came my way regarding faith. I almost didn’t want to bring it up at all and let this be one of those metaphorical-mystery things, but mentioning it is more covering my own back if people start thinking I’m some heretic and blasphemous person. I’m definitely not and I’m usually pretty closely guarded with this topic, so songwriting never seemed alright to do here. I made the song to comment on what I don’t understand about God and faith, but I wanted to write it just to prove to myself that I do have a strong faith in what I actually do know. I think it’s my personal point that I had to come to and address, and it felt really genuine to do it in a song. The idea that I’m lost at sea and confused on how to view things in my life, and just ultimately being fearful of a tyrannical God was something I felt like I needed to realize to move away from questioning and be a stronger person.
Maybe I Didn’t Feel A Thing
I think when I wrote this I was still in my “Castles” mood, and I felt a lot of weird anger against whether this band was everything we were wanting it to be, and that it all bubbled over when we had to decide to move on as a three piece. I think I meant for “Castles” to be a really bittersweet song, and this one was just my angry live-and-let-live one, but it still needed to come out. We were all a big jumbled mess of emotion, and I had to struggle with how I handled the whole thing, cause I think I tend to get a little bratty sometimes. I didn’t want to be that way anymore, but all I could do was feel like I didn’t handle it well, and grind my teeth to keep from saying things I didn’t mean. I was worried pretty badly that it looked like I just didn’t care, and mentioning “maybe I didn’t feel a thing” was my way of dispelling that altogether. I kind of mentioned how quickly I feel like everything fell apart, a similar homage to castles crumbling, but seeing a stone thrown through a paper home, total devastation because we just relied so much on something that fell apart so easily.
This Is How You Rewrote Yourself
I love this whole song, everything about it. It is, to me, the happiest and most uplifting song on the EP. From start to finish, it makes me feel so good. It was 100% born out of me just trying to make myself say what I wanted better in our lyrics. I only wrote about how complicated and weighted words can be, and it’s a comment on me never taking them seriously before. Or at least not taking them as seriously as I should be. It’s so simple and can be taken so many ways, and I find something new all the time with it, that I didn’t really think I was trying to tell myself when I wrote it.
Castles
“Castles” is 100% about the band dealing with losing Mason, personally and professionally, and I think it plays heavily into how much we were just sad and how bittersweet it was to be wishing off a huge part of our lives as well as wishing him into a successful career away from the band. It is a sad song, a mad song, and a sorry song all rolled into a ball of angst. In some parts it comes out a little more bitter than sweet, but it is a really accurate portrayal of just how weird and bummed out we all were, and how awkwardly we had to struggle with a new flurry of emotions. My favorite line in the whole song is “I can’t force myself to keep my head above the water, if it doesn’t feel real to me.” I almost wrote that directly at the rest of the guys in the band, and it was maybe a tiny cry for help from them, and I feel like it was just answered so satisfyingly with the writing of the rest of this album, and hearing the final product.
Have You Already Forgotten My Name?
Parents aren’t supposed to pick favorite kids, and it feels weird picking favorites on this EP, but this one is definitely in line behind “This Is How You Rewrote Yourself.” I don’t think I ever told Louis, and I’m pretty sure he will be finding out about this by reading this track by track if he hasn’t already pieced together yet, but I wrote this song 100% for him. He was dealing with a pretty heavy time in his life, and feeling kind of down about things that weren’t his fault. I wouldn’t want to offend his privacy in anyway so I feel the need to be pretty general, but I wanted it to just talk about how relationships are two way roads, and sometimes things just end, and neither person is at fault more than the other. It’s not a particularly happy or uplifting song at all. In my opinion, it’s really dark. It’s just about things ending, and taking responsibility for part of the mess that was made. “I was an arrow that never flew far enough, and I can only blame myself.”
