Brisbane’s favourite progressive alternative powerhouse, Caligula’s Horse, recently dropped their massive record Bloom which included the killer single ‘Firelight’.
“Firelight is dedicated to those we’ve lost.” Says vocalist Jim Grey “A reminder not to dwell in mourning and melancholy, but to celebrate life in all its fragility. It’s a bright and uplifting song, but bittersweet.”
Recently, Caligula’s Horse have been pretty busy, they recently embarked on a successful, sell out national tour with UK heavyweights TesseracT, as well as supporting acts such as Opeth, Mastodon, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and The Ocean, as well as signing a worldwide record deal with lauded European label Inside Out Music.
With their European tour with Norwegian blackjazz innovators Shining kicking off today, Caligula’s Horse are on a roll. To celebrate all their successes, vocalist Jim Grey has given us a track by track rundown of Bloom which you can check out below. For more info visit www.caligulashorse.com.
Bloom
It’s one of my favourites from the album just because the message cannot be confused. It is clear as day. It is pure optimism and self-belief. The strongest message in there is that all hope is not lost and you already have what you need, so you can just let it grow. I think that really sums up the positive vibe of the album for me. It’s a great start to the album and I think it really sets the mood very well.
In terms of recording for that one, I was really proud because there is a moment, for about a minute of the track was the first take that I sang in the studio. Because we were going with this approach where we wanted it to be real, with no vocal tuning or anything else and we wanted it to be longer takes without doing drop ins and edits, so there is about a minute on there that is the first take that I did. The mood was right, the content was right and we just nutted it out and it ended up being perfect, so we just left it. Tried it a couple more times and just couldn’t beat it.
Marigold
I think we wanted this to be the first track that people heard because we think that it’s the perfect bridge between The Tide, The Thief & River’s End and Bloom. It captures the energy of the live performance – people are very excited to hear it live already, after just hearing it a few times on Youtube. It also has that strong, optimistic message and it’s sort of like a second part to ‘Bloom.’
They run kind of seamlessly together and there’s a couple of things that reprise from each one. The difference with this one is that it’s celebrating the fact that a man cannot be judged by what he earns or what he owns but by those he loves and those that love him. It’s a message of positivity. You cannot carry gold with you into death. There is no purpose for that. So what matters is the time that you spend before that, who you spend it with and how you do it. That’s the positive message from that one.
The song writing for this was really quick too because a lot of the themes had already existed in pieces instrumentally. We had a shorter version of the song that already existed and we were trying to sit down and nut out the vocal parts for it. Something wasn’t quite right, until one little lyrical thing came in. I think it was the “feed my soul” lyric in the pre-chorus. The minute that started happening we knew exactly what we were doing and could belt it out.
Firelight
The first song that we wrote for this album. It’s definitely one of the softer and poppier approaches to song writing on this one, but it’s a song that I’m very, very personally attached to and have a lot of love for. It’s basically the start of the theme on the album, which will repeat a couple of times that we should be celebrating the fragility of Earthly life and the fact that we’re very fragile and that we don’t live very long.
It’s very important that we spend our lives the right way and we celebrate one another. It’s a powerful message and we actually toured on this track at the end of last year. I dedicated it each time to a friend of mine that had passed away about a month before, so this song always makes me think of her when I sing it and I think that it’s really important that it stays that way.
Dragonfly
This is Sam Vallen’s favourite song on the album. He’s very, very proud of this one. In terms of the length, you know, you never really sit down and go, “I’m going to write a nine minute song.” This one was a very organic process and one thing leads to another and every key change is bridged and everything is very natural sounding.
So when you get to the end of it, for me, it doesn’t feel like that long a song. You feel like you’ve just taken a little journey and, “Oh, that’s done now.” Interesting little titbit lyrically for this one, most of the lyrical inspiration was almost a love song to the music of Tori Amos. I was very influenced by her – Little Earthquakes was a huge album for me.
If you look through the lyrics you’ll probably find a bunch of references to her music. And of course musically to Jeff Buckley as well. You could easily write this song off as being dark and negative sounding, particularly with the end, but I think when you’re in the right place and you sit down and listen to it, you’ll find that it’s a very positive and self-affirming statement.
Rust
This is the heaviest song on the album. It’s probably the most straight forward metal approach to song writing as well. We wanted something that was punchy, energetic and that really goes off in the live context. The original inspiration for the first part of this song was, I was getting quite sick and tired of the apathy, and beyond apathy to aggressive ignorance and stubbornness of particularly this nation’s government towards sustainability and sustainable industry.
That was sort of the inspiration for again, passing on the message that you can’t breathe rust. It became a lot more personal as well, so it’s an over arching theme about giving up and being right on the edge of giving up. Someone almost at the point of no return is what’s captured in the song. I think the following song, ‘Turntail’ is a good mirror for that because it’s the opposite. It’s realising things have gone wrong but you’re going to stand your ground.
Turntail
The original inspiration was a moment that occurred in my head over a few seconds. I had this really clear image of this particular thing in my head. I don’t want to go into it too explicitly because I want people to draw their own conclusions from it, but that’s all that it took.
I had two seconds of plot in my head and it really resonated with me. So, then from there I was inspired to write something that was optimistic about the state of the world, despite the fact that particularly (again in this nation) our absolutely disgusting and unconscionable treatment of refugees that we are obliged to protect and to welcome. And that we should take courage and show compassion because there seems to be this bizarre stigma that some people believe that showing compassion or openness or to welcome someone with open arms into this country, is somehow a sign of weakness, when in truth – in a time of crisis and a time of devastation, the most brave and the unequivocally most courageous thing you can do is to show compassion at a time like this.
So this is a song of compassion, it’s a song of bravery, it’s a song of courage and it’s a song of standing your ground. I’m very proud of it, I hope that other people enjoy it and I can’t wait to take it on tour as well.
Daughter Of The Mountain
This is a little bit different. Much more a conceptual piece. I’d done lot of research previously into involving a lot of subtle references to Greek and Roman mythology in our previous stuff, so I wanted to delve into a different culture a little bit, and kind of had a look at a few Japanese myths. It’s sort of an amalgam of a couple of them but this song is the most clear celebration of the fragility of Earthly life. I think that’s all that there is, really.
It’s almost a feminist retelling of the story of the Blossom Princess. But because of her choice and because of her choosing to love a god, instead of her sister loving the god – the Stone Princess – that’s why Earthly life is fragile and temporary, like the blossom rather than like the stone. It’s sort of a celebration of the fact that we fall softly and that we live brightly but temporarily.
Undergrowth
I love Undergrowth. It’s one of those ones that surprised me a little bit because it’s one that I’ve had in my head for a long time, ever since we had the discussion early on in the process of writing the album.
We wanted it to be about growth and to be about a blooming and a celebration, and this really came through. The chorus really sums up my life personally right now, as a dude, in that I just really want to be where love is and I want to celebrate with other people and want other people to be happy around me.
I want to make people happy. So that’s where that repeated theme comes from, of where there’s love, I’ll feed it and it was all I needed. So it is a love song of sorts but it is an abstract one. We’re talking about love for life and one another, not necessarily love between a couple.
