Happy Ears: Bound To Be Something Good by the Colonies
Intro by Sophie Minello
Process by Peter Stevens
The Colonies are a band based in Washington, DC who consist of Pete Stevens on vocals and guitar, Joey Mamlin on drums, Dylan Trupiano on guitar/production and Jordan Mullaney on bass. Recently releasing "Bound To Be Something Good" in July of 2018, they've been gaining ground in the music world. This release shows off their talent in writing melodies and catchy guitar riffs. To know more about their process behind this song, read below:
“Bound To Be Something Good” was a song that was written in different time periods. Flashback to Summer 2017 and it was a riff that I was writing for a song for our second album “One of A Kind”. I had just listened to a song by Cage the Elephant called Cigarette Day dreams which used the Dmaj7 chord in it’s intro and I loved that chord so much I wanted to include it in a riff of mine. I switched the chords to go from Bminor to the Dmaj7 back to a Bminor and loved the way it flowed. I instantly felt the groovy funky vibe of the progression and felt something like I created something I had never done before. At the time I couldn’t think of how to further the track from here so it didn’t make the cut
Flash forward to February 2018, I had been playing guitar and started replaying that riff. Then the melody that’s in the “Bound To Be Something Good” part came to me out of nowhere. I started playing that melody on the guitar over what I already had and knew it was (pun intended) bound to be something good.
The lyrics of the song were written in relation to my relationship with my girlfriend and how she was studying abroad in London while i stayed in Washington DC. We were trying to communicate with the timezone differences but it was difficult knowing that I wouldn’t see her for 2+ months and the lyrics display the frustration with communication over only technology and the hopefulness of when i would go visit her. (London was a blast btw)
In June, the band decided to record the song. Dylan, our guitarist, does a fantastic job in production. We recorded the drum track first to a metronome with two microphones and recorded the other parts directly into the interface. Jordan's bass line really drives the intro and verses and we wanted to put emphasis on that in the verse. With an impulse we thought it would be cool to record a wood block to add diversity to the production giving it a more dancey vibe. Joey nailed it and that’s one of my favorite parts of the song! It was uploaded on July 16th.
Today the track has over 6k streams on Spotify and is our most popular song. It is the title track for our upcoming album in the fall!