I actually try to write songs so that are ambiguous.
The band, Starset, is sci-fi-based and there is a narrative attached to everything.
"Monster"...
Within the record, there's an arc within it and it's like a journey and there's a transformation
that happens in the record where the experience becomes dark and more visceral.
And this transformation of the listener or this ethereal character becomes the monster
and is embracing that.
I was in Venice Beach on a rooftop, just searching for the hook for this song and it just sort
of dawned on me all at once.
And the whole entire song sort of just came to fruition.
In any relationship that starts off healthy, there is trust and openness.
That's what makes the transformation or the wound so much greater.
When that trust is abused.
Especially if it just comes out of nowhere.
If something goes sour and there's damage done, there might be a little bit of a recurring
'I'm not gonna let this happen again.
I'm not gonna forget this.'
Maybe there's even a little bit of a chance for retribution or revenge in there.
Sometimes, you get this very simple line and for a fleeting moment, you wonder if it's
too simple and then you realize, it says everything and it has to stay.
And that's a line that you tend to build the rest of the stanza around.
Once you care about someone in any regard, or something, even, and it's damaging, but
you can't stop loving it.
You naturally hate it.
Well, you know in the context of this song, I tried to draw from Frankenstein a little
bit.
From the early lines of the song, just a little Mary Shelley.
That's the moment where my experience with the label came in.
Maybe I didn't have the second verse done, they might've called me.
I was like, 'Oh yeah.
There’s some fodder.'
It's sort of the point of no return.
It even almost begs the question of...
It sort of hints at it being your own fault.
I think for some people becoming a monster or becoming a victim is an inevitability.
At this point in the song, I decided to maybe harken back to a modified sort of Frankenstein
thing.
I love bridges because I like to break out of the construct of the song and hit it from
a different angle.
The shallow holes is sort of hints at a couple of things at once.
Graves and sort of painting this Frankenstein backdrop.
But at the same time, then changing it up with...
It's more about planting something that turns into darkness.
And more of that realization or acknowledgement that the darkness is coming from you, yourself.
And then is coming to fruition through someone else after you've already planted it.
So the fault is your own.
You're not only the subject of what has turned you into the monster, but you are the monster
and your its cause as well.
The full cycle.
I think it's pretty true to life.