Brisbane alternative rock quartet Rare Words channel energy and emotion into their latest arena-ready hard hitter, Antidote, out everywhere today. The single was written, recorded and produced by the band with Ocean Grove‘s Sam Bassal on board for the mix and master.
A personal release for vocalist Joel Reardon, Antidote tackles the confusing and tumultuous experience of living with ADHD before diagnosis. The single acts as an open letter to the condition itself, and reflects on the struggles before understanding there was an answer to the symptoms.
HEAVY caught up with vocalist Joel to get to know Rare Words a little better, and to learn more about their first release of the year, Antidote…
HEAVY: Hey Rare Words! Congrats on your new single, Antidote. Could you introduce HEAVY to the band – who are you and when did it all begin?
JOEL: Hello, and thank you! We’re Joel (vocals), Brent (guitars), Luke (bass) and Matty (drums) and we’re a heavy band based from Brisbane. The band started from a “Brisbane Musicians looking for a band” Facebook Group where Brent and I met along with some other friends. Luke came about after we played in some other projects together and recorded with him, and we found Matty after seeing some of his drum covers as well as his mutual connection with our previous drummer.
H: Could you talk us through your new single? What does it mean to you, and who worked behind the scenes to bring it to life?
J: In a nutshell, Antidote is about feeling like things just aren’t right, seeking help and finding some peace. On a more personal level, the themes of the song came about through a late 20’s ADHD diagnosis a year or so ago, and the song follows through that journey of questioning what’s going on, through to where I’m at now with feeling comfortable in my skin and not feeling the weight of it anymore.
All of our music is self-produced, and I’m based in Melbourne while the rest of the band are in Brisbane so we’ll all get an idea together over multiple Dropbox files and iterations, and then we’ll get to refining it once there is a good base to it. We’ve worked with Sam Bassal from Ocean Grove on the mixing and mastering side for our last three songs, which has been rad too. He has delivered for us time and time again, and we’re constantly blown away when we hear what he sends back as the final versus what we sent him, it’s such a critical factor.
Antidote came about really weirdly haha, I had written the chorus guitar riff maybe three to four years ago, and we’d tried to find it a home for ages, and it just never worked. At some point last year, I was on my lunch break working from home and was just playing about with the chorus and wanted to re-track it just to see if I could find any inspiration for it and then within an hour, the first demo was done and everything else just fell together pretty quickly.
The video for Antidote was put together by Aaron from Digital Bath Productions, and it was really fun to do something quite alternative and pretty far off the metalcore look and feel that we’ve previously done. We got to play loud, aggressive music in a giant, regal old haunted mansion, and we’re so happy with the final product.
H: Does Antidote fit on a larger release later down the line?
J: What that release looks like exactly isn’t locked in yet, but we really want to have a full record for people to listen to. We’ve released two EP’s and a bunch of singles, but a full-length isn’t something we’ve done yet, and for me personally, I have always wanted to have that nine to twelve songs and a really nice physical version to hold onto.
H: Do you have any shows coming up where fans can see the new tune played live?
J: Not right now, but we’ve been testing it out before the release at the last few shows and the reception has been great. We’re absolutely itching to play it live for people once they’ve heard the recorded version!
H: This year is your 10th year as a band, what have been some highlights so far?
J: Definitely wild to think we have been a band for that long! Playing with bands like ‘68 at Crowbar (RIP) was unreal for me personally, I was obsessed with Norma Jean as a kid and being on the same bill as Josh Scogin was just mental. Our EP release show was also one to remember, it was our first headline show, and it sold out, which was just crazy. Apart from all the shows, the amount of close friends that we’ve all made is just crazy too.
H: Who/what inspires Rare Words?
J: We all have really eclectic tastes in music, which is a huge contributor to everyone’s input on our sound. Whether it’s an interesting production element from somewhere, or hearing a completely different genre of song and thinking we could give something like that a go, it’s everywhere. It’s hard to explain, but if you hear a song, and you think “yeah this is sick, but it’d be cool if there was a band that was a heavier version of this, or did a bit more melody in these bits”, I try and almost scratch the itch I have for music I want to hear.
Antidote has a bit of an anthemic feel to it, but I think specifically we look to bands like Static Dress, Meshuggah, Blink-182, Bring Me The Horizon, all bands at the top of their sounds that have carved their own path with a unique sound.
H: What would be Rare Words ‘I’ve made it’ moment?
J: I feel like it has to be a big summer festival slot, whether it’s at a festival like Good Things or Knotfest in Australia, or one of the mental European ones, that’d just be insane.
H: Who are you jamming at the moment?
J: Currently I’ve had Static Dress, Knocked Loose, Nothing But Thieves, quannic, Starve, Bloom and Bring Me the Horizon on repeat. There’s been so much sick new music this year already!
