Time Bomb- new JDJ collab (jenndye429, DDye, nzmetal) original song + video

Community Recordings Collaborations-Bands-Projects
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Hi all,

Jeff, Dan and I are making our JDJ return today with our second original song/video collab!

The feedback on our first song together, Sirens, was so incredible and encouraging, that of course we had to write another song and film a video to go along with it :wink: We are all very excited to share it with you today.

This song originally started as a little seed of an idea that popped into my mind shortly before we finished Sirens. Once that was completed, we could focus our trioā€™s full attention on growing it into the final result you hear now. I think we all feel like we ā€œleveled upā€ with this song and I couldnā€™t be more happy with how it ended up feeling and sounding. I love to leave things open for interpretation, so I wonā€™t spoil the subject matter, but I hope everyone that watches/listens can get a little something different out of it.

On the video side, this was our groupā€™s first foray into green screen work. We had a ton of fun and learned a lot that we can use for future projects! Dan @DDye was once again the head video editor and really took the time to make sure it was right despite my impatience with waiting for the edits to be done :laughing:

Iā€™ve got to take a minute to say a HUGE thank you to Jeff @nzmetal for being our collaborator, virtual band mate and friend. I think I speak for both Dan and myself when I say that we are so fortunate that you said yes to our invitation to join in on the insanity! Everything we send your way gets about a million times better once youā€™ve had a chance to work your magic on it! Itā€™s like Christmas morning in Portland every time we get files back from you. From your skill on the guitar, to your creative input to your eye and ear for detail- none of our songs would be what they are without you! Hereā€™s to the next one! :clinking_glasses::wink::metal:ā€¦

We hope you all enjoy! Full song lyrics are below.

QUICK CONTENT WARNING: There is some mild foul language and some slightly creepy/eerie imagery in the video. Just wanted to call it out in case anyone is sensitive to that.

Time Bomb Lyrics

(Verse 1)

Eyes open
Switch on
Wanna throw sh!t
Drop bombs
Inspect the pieces
Of disarray

Not gonna do it, but
I think about it

My mind picks up
frequencies
Wires crossed
Hums and buzzing
Wakes me up
From the daydreams

Not gonna do it, but
I think about it

(Chorus)

Iā€™m not crazy
But I can hear the voices
and they
Tell me to veer this train
Straight off its tracks

Iā€™m fine but
I wonder if I could pour
the gasoline
and
Then light a match

Do my best
Not to take you down with me
But I make no guarantees
Cause Iā€™m a time bomb
Tick, tick, tick

(Verse 2)

Mid day
Itā€™s getting louder
The excuses
Are getting harder
A smile
Deception

Not gonna do it, but
I think about it

Evening comes
Lines are crossed
I knew it
All along
Canā€™t stop this
Thereā€™s no use

Not gonna do it, but
I think about it

(Chorus)

Iā€™m not crazy
But I can hear the voices
and they
Tell me to veer this train
Straight off its tracks

Iā€™m fine but
I wonder if I could pour
the gasoline
and
Then light a match

Do my best
Not to take you down with me
But I make no guarantees
Cause Iā€™m a time bomb
Tick, tick, tick

(Bridge)

Oh, youā€™re such a soft little
thing
Mash you up
In my hands
The jig is up
The end is near
Wink and destroy your
World

(Chorus)

Iā€™m not crazy
But I can hear the voices
and they
Tell me to veer this train
Straight off its tracks

Iā€™m fine but
I wonder if I could pour
the gasoline
and
Then light a match

Do my best
Not to take you down with me
But I make no guarantees
Cause Iā€™m a time bomb
Tick, tick, tick

23 Likes
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What can I say? It just gets better. Iā€™m lost for wordsā€¦

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Love that youā€™re doing this! It looks like you have a lot of fun with this and the result is outstanding.

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Wooohooooooo!!!
I like it, really grungy plenty of attitude and badass vocals full of naughtiness :laughing:
More please :smiling_imp::smiling_imp::smiling_imp:

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:exploding_head: :exploding_head: Mind blowing !

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Getting late here and just read the write up and looked at the youtube thumbnail. So I know this is going to be a doozey. Guess a volume ramp will be needed and headphones. So full analysis may take a while. You canā€™t judge a book by its cover ? Or can you ?
@Jenndye429 @DDye @nzmetal great to see you back so soon.
:sunglasses:

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Wow ! Need to digest and revisit in the morning. But for now one word. Stunning. :metal:

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Iā€™m looking forward to your full take Toby. :smiley: I donā€™t know how many times we mentioned you while we were working on it. :wink: Your encouragement was part of the inspirational energy. :metal:

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Hi Jen, that was really good. Glad to see you and the band going down the original route. That is music to my ears. The only feedback Iā€™d give is that over 3.5 minutes for a song is too long espuecially when youā€™re a band starting out. I personally think youā€™ve got something but outside of JGC you need to cut the time down on the tracks. But thatā€™s just my opinion and Iā€™m sure plenty of members of the JGC will disagree. All I will say is I listened from a neutral point of view as if you were a new act to me and not a JGC member. Also @nzmetal has to be a permanent member of the band, that dude is the bees knees but donā€™t tell him that. Wish you all the best, socio.

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Thank you for everyoneā€™s kind words above! @rorystrat @jacobbonde @DarrellW @math07 @TheMadman_tobyjenner @Socio :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:

Yes, it was soooo much fun! :smiley: :partying_face:

Thanks, James! That is super kind of you to say! I promise I wonā€™t let it go to my head :wink: :joy:

Totally hear you about the song length, James. Thank you for raising this, super appreciate gaining your insight :hugs: Honest feedback is always so helpful and I really liked how you listened to it from a general public perspective, which is impossible for me to do being so close to it! :sweat_smile: This has definitely been a topic of discussion. I guess we all agreed that our goal really isnā€™t to get radio air time or mass acceptance (if that was even a possibility! :joy: ), we make these songs, as they are, because we like them. I agree that in todayā€™s world, there is so much noise competing for everyoneā€™s attention that this would make it even more difficult to break through (however unlikely that may be anyway!), but I suppose thatā€™s the trade off. I would say that for the majority of the bands I listen to, the songs would easily average in the 5min+ range, and a good proportion of those bands are new, whether theyā€™re a group Iā€™ve discovered online or seen locally at a gig, with say only an EP, demo or maybe one album at most. I definitely have a liking for things like extended intros and drawn out bridge sections, so that for sure plays a role with leaning in to that with JDJ. Certainly not likely to work for the majority of people, but if thereā€™s just a small swag of folk out there that dig it like us, then that would be incredibly cool to me!

To Jennifer & @DDye - Beautiful write up and thank you so much for your kind words! :hugs: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
What a blast this song was eh?! :smiley: I had so much fun working with you both on it! Everything from when Jennifer sat us down (well, them together and me online :wink: ) and played her demo for us, having recorded it on Danā€™s old laptop, that proved a little challenging given the poor thing had seen better days! :sweat_smile: Right through to figuring out our parts, then laying down the tracks, mixing (mostly Danā€™s genius there!), on to shooting our clips for the video & working on the edit! If I recall correctly, we started talking about the video from straight after the first listen of the demo! :thinking: We may have a little problem with getting ahead of ourselves at times :wink: :rofl: Filming was hilarious! :joy: Getting dressed up, trying to play with a mask on, not easyā€¦& hot! :hot_face: I donā€™t recommend it! :laughing: May have also used a couple of 3M command strips on the nicely painted walls of my flat to hold up the green screen, hope they come off clean! :grimacing: :sweat_smile:
Weā€™ve all learned so much from this song, as well as Sirens, and slowly but surely settling into a nice workflow of bringing it together at a distance. Although, I must say that the tyranny of distance has melted away somewhat. Especially now with this song under our belts, I really felt a sense of close connection between us all that makes me feel we truly have become a band, even though weā€™ve never meet in real life! :joy: If anyone is mulling over collaborating with others here, please please do give it a try! It is so rewarding and a great way to implement what youā€™ve learned from Justin and push yourself to be creative.
To my great friends, and bandmates! :smiley: Jennifer and Dan, I could not have wished for more AWESOME people to have had the privilege to work with! (Love this community! Which is also a huge privilege to be a part of! :heart: ). Iā€™m immensely grateful to be sharing this journey with you and incredibly proud of what has come from it so far! As I may have mentioned previously on Sirens, your kindness, talent, creativity and diligent hard work on getting these projects over the line is a massive inspiration and only continues to get stronger! THANK YOU so much! :blush: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :star2: There will be plenty more to come from JDJ - watch this space!!
PS hopefully Arelly will not need to kick us off Zoom to get her dinner for a few nights eh?! :grimacing: :rofl:

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For a second I thought, why would you be covering Rancidā€™s ā€œTime bombā€? Itā€™s not that good a song after all.

Then I realised itā€™s an original and I knew I would be in for a treat. So I got more coffee and slowly started reading the lyrics to savour the moment of anticipationā€¦

Wow, this one is maybe even better than ā€œsirensā€. The lyrics, the atmosphere, the storytelling through music and video. (Who had the idea using Rohrschach-pictures? Loved it)

The length of the song is not an issue for me at all. If I should criticize something, then maybe that the bridge felt maybe slightly too disconnected from the rest of the song.

EDIT:
I think now I got it. There is a rest (is that the correct term?) before the bridge starts thatā€™s maybe just ever so slightly too long in my ears. Maybe if @nzmetal your last note before the start of the bridge would linger just a few milliseconds longerā€¦ That would be perfect. But thatā€™s just me splitting hairs in the end :slightly_smiling_face:

What a great collab you guys have going :star_struck:

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@rorystrat @jacobbonde @DarrellW @math07

Thank you all so much for watching and for the kind words! We all had a blast both writing the song and doing the video. Iā€™m glad it shows :grin:

We will be anxiously awaiting your full review :wink:

Thank you so much for the feedback, James! Like Jeff mentioned, we have definitely had discussions about song length during the writing process. Since we are just doing this for our own enjoyment and not for radio airplay, we just went with what we liked :grin: :laughing: We are definitely happy to have anyoneā€™s attention for however long they would like to give it to us :laughing:

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Right back at you! :wink:

Oh man, that laptop! I was so ready to throw that thing out the window! :laughing: I thought about re-listening to my demo so I could compare the original to the final product. What a difference! :wink: :grin:

Yep! 1000% true :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Considering
I already have ideas for the next oneā€¦ :wink:

Agreed! I think all three of us had costume difficulties to a certain degree :laughing:

Completely agree! We have a good system in place now and I think it will just get easier/better the more we do :blush: It almost feels like you are here editing with us!

Ditto right back at you! I am having an absolute blast working on these! We couldnā€™t have asked for a better partnership :grin:

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Short and simple from me.

Cool.
Wow.
Rockinā€™.
:sunglasses:

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That was amazing guys - great songwriting, playing and production - whatā€™s not to like!

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I dig this completely, guys! :smiley: I love the audio/visual vibe. It is like being in the nightmare, scary but interested to see what will happen next. A musical theatre. It instantly reminded me of this, I am not sure if you ever listened it.

Jen, I think you have very specific voice and you enunciate words in a way that goes perfectly with your music.

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Mutual @nzmetal! Working on these songs is an amazing experience, and I agree about the distance not feeling like a thing. Weā€™re able to make it happen. Letā€™s keep doing it! :fire:

I donā€™t think he could get rid of us if he wanted to! LOL! :smiley:

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Iā€™ll just keep it short, you guys are sick :+1: Itā€™s like just a huge step up from your last one and this is just crazy. Loving all the background, costume, the sound and itā€™s not even my preferred genre but b@#$&y awesome guys. :clap: :clap:

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@JokuMuu, thank you! Yeah, I love how those turned out. Ultimately Jennifer came up with the idea for the Rorschach pictures. I had a vision for the watercolor effect and was imagining filming small snippets of the ink spreading, and then revealing the artwork at the end. While I was describing that idea, Jennifer chimed in with doing Rorschach pictures, and it made perfect sense with the song. Once we had that idea the rest of the story and visuals started coming together. :smiley:

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Wow, that was amazing. Youā€™ve taken this to the next level. I can only begin to imaging how much work goes into a production like that. But so worth it. And honestly, if I stumbled over it with a cool band name Iā€™d figure you were a gigging recording band working with a pro team.

The duration has come up. My 2cs, never felt a sense of it being too long, however long it was, I honestly donā€™t know. I was just gripped by the music and the video.

Musically, I loved the modulation . . . . if I am right. But really it rocked, just enough metal edge to the more grunge/punk aesthetic that I could truly enjoy it (yes, Jeff knows, I am not a metalhead, but a hard bluesy rocker at heart).

Keep 'them coming. 2 down, 2 to go for an EP.

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