There are plenty of songs out that initially come off being pretty impressive, but also leave you challenging the band with: “Yeah, but let’s see you do that live.” Apparently Youngtree & The Blooms “Ten Million Ways to Decay” is more than just studio wizardry; that mile-a-minute tongue-twister reads like a George R Martin book on speed, and now they band have got the live video to prove it.
Take from their 2018 debut album Musical Chairs, the band filled out the Rocket Room in downtown St. John’s one October evening, to film a concert. Filmed by Tom Cochrane, possibly the best photographer in Newfoundland, the video does more to capture the live energy of the band than the single might suggest.
Though pulling from the album’s deep themes of mortality, the single is, conversely, a standout frenzy with some oral acrobatics being performed by Peter Willie Youngtree, the band’s frontman and namesake.
“Well, when I was writing it I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G., so, the rhyme schemes and phrasing are quite heavily influenced by him. But when I put the basic rock n’ roll chords underneath, it began to sound sort of like a macabre ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’,” says Youngtree, comparing the song to the country classic made famous by Lucky Starr, Hank Snow and Johnny Cash.
“It took me a full year to get the song to a place I was happy with. I experimented with various chord progressions until I settled on the 1-4–2. I showed it to Chris Kirby, the album’s producer, and he suggested cutting the entire first verse, which I did. And that’s the version you hear today.”
Tour Dates:
05.04.19 – Charlottetown, PE @ ECMA Breakout Stage
05.05.19 – Berwick, NS @ The Union Street*
05.10.19 – St. John’s, NL @ The Black Sheep
*with The Kubasonics