Album Review: 18th & Addison- Makeshift Monster (with Exclusive RockRevolt content!)

POSTCARDS:

Kait: Postcards is a song about needing to get away for a while

to get your act together. Nobody ever wants to admit that

they have a problem of any kind, but sometimes it’s crucial to

get away, find yourself again, even it means leaving behind

people you care about, to get back to the person you want to

be.

Tom: My verse in this song stemmed from some pretty

confusing and heavy times in my family. I’m not the best at

communicating my thoughts like I want to without getting

overwhelmed, so I wrote this part, and sorta turned the song

around from a seemingly sad or disappointed point of view on

someone leaving to being a more optimistic view on letting go

and moving on. I don’t care who it is… siblings, parents,

significant others, friends, co-workers etc., if there are toxic

people in my life who I feel don’t have my back or best

interest as I do for them, I cut them out. Might sound selfish,

but life is too short to put up with that.

HIDE & SEEK:

Kait: For me, “Hide and Seek” is sort of a different perspective
on dealing with old demons. It’s about going through a tough

time, embracing it, getting through it and helping others who

are going through a similar situation.

Tom: This song was fun because we each wrote every other

line in the verses accidentally. Same idea in mind, but each

person’s lyric just made the next one even more exciting and

truthful. It’s pretty much that same aura of self doubt that

encompasses the whole record, which that just comes with

life and growing up, I guess. We’re always just trying to be the

best version of ourselves we can be and take things day by

day without losing our minds. Sometimes that feels

impossible to do, but it’s not.

MY OLD SKIN:

Tom: I’m not usually the type of person to really be influenced

by others or I guess pay attention to what people think of me

or my choices, but at this time, I definitely caved. I was at a

really low point mentally. I was working a job that just made

me beyond miserable and took away a lot of my focus from

music, so I left. I was making pretty good money working

there, so quitting that job of course lead a lot of people I

considered family to judge and ridicule and treat me so

differently. It was like my financial status or accomplishments

determined who I am as a person in their eyes, or how well I’m

doing with life or not, and that really destroyed my confidence

for a long time. I wanted to change everything. I wanted to

move out of New Jersey; I wanted new friends, new

atmosphere, new personality, new look, new everything

basically. It made me such a pissed off, negative person. It

almost ruined my relationship; it definitely tore apart

friendships and was so self destructive, so I got so sick of who I

was becoming and just wanted to throw it all away and start

over to hopefully find myself again. This is a brutally honest

song about just that. Starting over and being proud of who

you are, doing the things you love no matter what the cost, 

and being able to say fuck everyone else and move forward

for you. Writing this song got me closer to my old self;

recording it got me even closer than that so I can’t wait to

play this live and see where that goes. Hopefully this song

speaks to someone who feels like I did.

DISASTER BY DESIGN:

Kait: Tom and I wrote this song at a time when there was A

LOT going on in the media. Obviously there’s always constant

chaos in the news, but when we wrote this, I think our

patience was wearing thin. Personally when I wrote this, I was

expressing how sad it is that even in the worst situations; it’s

nearly impossible for everyone to unite and make this world a

better place. Instead of helping or making a difference, people

are filming on their cellphones and standing by instead of

doing the right thing. This is just one of the many issues this

song reflects.

Tom: Yeah. This song is absolutely a no bullshit and straight

up pointing the finger type song and right and wrong. No

metaphors, no clever rhymes. Just blunt, honest truth about

how we feel when we see these facebook videos of kids

getting beat half to death or stabbed. It’s as if going viral

nowadays is more valuable than human life, and it’s sickening

and needs to be addressed. We don’t always write to put our

music on some societal or political platform, but every now

and then we think it’s important to get these things out there

and write selflessly. Basically, if you see someone fall down,

pick them up. Don’t kick them while they’re down so you can

boost your ego temporarily on social media and wake up and

realize reality TV is NOT REAL.

ALL & EVERYTHING:

Tom: I like to write stories sometimes and detach from writing

about myself or my views on the world around me. We did

that with “Central City Suicide” on our last release, Little

Parasites. I think it keeps me creative, and I get a serious high

from it. I’m also really interested in lucid dreaming and sleep

studies so this song is solely a story about a man (or woman)

who loses a loved one but keeps reliving this extremely vivid

and controlled dream where he’s waiting under a broken

street light with a purpose, but he’s not 100% sure of what it is

right away, but it keeps happening every night. So the story

goes on, and it turns out the one he lost only exists in this

dream world, so the guy attempts to find his way into a coma

so he never has to leave this lucid dream where he’s always

with her as if they’re the only two people on the planet. I

wrote it generally enough to where people can relate to it in

their own way which to me, is extremely important in songs.

So whether it be a wife, daughter, girlfriend, dog, grandma,

whatever. It’s open for interpretation. It’s a seemingly sad

story, but it’s actually very optimistic. This song happened so

naturally that it basically wrote itself, and those are usually my

favorite songs.