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9/28/2016 3:19:53 AM
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My Band Just Released a Song About Destiny (sort of)

Hey-lo forks, I play in a prog-metal band called [url=http://www.tactusband.com][b]TACTUS[/b][/url], and this is a song that's inspired heavily by Destiny. It's off our upcoming October 7th album. The tl;dr story behind the song is below, but to cut to the chase, you can listen to the song here now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kSdHSdFuZw SO - here's the story: I freaking love Destiny. I love epic story-telling, which means I love things like Destiny, Halo, Mass Effect, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars . . . and as a musician and massive fan of music - concept albums. I love sinking my teeth into the made-up lore of these wonderful universes, and the deeper they are, the more entranced I am. Destiny is no exception, and its cryptic storytelling and nebulous revelations of details just intrigue me even more. While my band was writing and starting to record our album, myself and the other guitarist (forgot to mention, I am a guitarist) were both HARDCORE into Destiny. We both played every day for the first several months. It was one of the few reprieves I got from being at my day-job or being in the studio, so it became an integral part of my life and daily experiences. My "obsession" with it led to one or two jokes amongst friends that I should write a song about it - and me being me, loving sci-fi and epic storytelling, thought "hey, actually . . . maybe I will!" Even though I'm a guitar player, I love to sing and I love to write lyrics. Our vocalist and I share lyric duties about 50/50, depending on which of us feels inspired by the music the band writes. Both of us have different approaches, but we both draw heavily from personal experience. When I'm writing lyrics specifically (I also write papers and stories), I prefer to use a metaphor or to tell a fictional story that I can relate to a personal experience, rather than speaking directly. It really bothers me when lyrics are literal - I like them to be vague and open to interpretation, while simultaneously being deeply meaningful to myself in specific ways. For this song, I spoke [i]very[/i] loosely about the Traveler's arrival, the Golden Age, and the Collapse from the Destiny lore, and used it as a metaphor for a very painful experience that I had in my late youth: I fell madly in love with a girl just as I was finishing high-school, and my life was incredible for that summer. New, wonderful experiences like loving and being loved, losing my virginity, taking new adventures to new places . . . but when I had to go away to University, it was very difficult for me to be away from both her and from my family. I was only about 5 hours' drive away, so the relationship was maintainable, but the stresses I was facing very very quickly flipped my life into an emotional turmoil, and I became very depressed. And not like "oh boo I miss my girlfriend" depressed, but like "I just want to die because I am in agony" depressed. My "Golden Age" so to speak came crashing down pretty quick, and I was mentally ill because of it - it took me about three years to get back to some semblance of normality, and I do still struggle sometimes. But I feel like I found a way to use something meaningful to me in a happy time of my life to help express something that was very painful for me over a decade ago. So, thank you Bungie for that catharsis. I hope you like the song. It's not me singing (except a couple of background parts), but I did write all of the lyrics, and I'm very proud of it. If you listen to/look at the lyrics, there are some dead giveaways, as we drop phrases like "we are at the dawn of a [b]golden age[/b]", "the [b]darkness[/b] is a part of me", and "sole [b]glimmer[/b] of hope". If you already know the song is about Destiny, it makes it seem super cheesy - but keep in mind I'm not [i]really[/i] talking about Destiny, I'm talking about heartache and depression haha! Cheers, and thanks for reading if you did. Poho

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  • Congrats on you and your bands upcoming album! The great thing about music is how inspiration can come from all aspects of life, both postive and negative experiences all culminating into a product that brings joy and healing into ones life. Best of luck Poho!

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