Elephants And Stars find the dark heart of pop with their new single Bled Out At The Scene — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The leadoff single from the Toronto pop-rockers’ just-announced Sept. 1 EP Get Your Own Army, Bled Out At The Scene finds The Cars taking Bruce Springsteen on a late-night ride to the bitter end of lonely street. Even as it showcases the band’s uncanny ability to craft a chorus that gets in your head and stays there, frontman Manfred Stittmann’s erudite meditation on an acrimonious breakup will have audiences pumping their fists while crying into their beers:
“You can lie and say you never had aversion to me
You can hide all of the things that maybe help you believe
Given time you’ll know it’s really more a latent disease
Take a side and run and hide under your misbeliefs
By now, we’ve both bled out at the scene as we’ll find out
The one thing we needed is the one thing we just couldn’t be.”
“If you look at a mega-popular hit like Every Breath You Take by The Police,” says Stittman, “just think how many people have played that song at weddings and occasions like that thinking it’s this heartfelt love ballad, when in truth it’s sung from the point of view of a stalker. I listen to a lot of really dark, heavy stuff like death metal and punk, but those lyrics don’t connect with me as much when the words and the sound align too closely. They end up canceling each other out. To me, death metal is almost party music even though I take the playing very seriously.
“On the other hand,” he continues, “bubblegum pop usually doesn’t do it for me. I need some contrast — that feels more lifelike to me because, if you think about it, life is contrast. And I feel like that’s what we’re craving in art that seeks to be more than just entertainment, at least I do. I like to be entertained too, but I like to think this band can do both. You can sip your beer and play our songs at a cookout, or you can put them on to dwell on whatever you need to dwell on. I’m not the most profound songwriter, but I like to think our music can be there for you at whatever level you need it to be in the moment.”
The band’s followup to their 2022 full-length Last Chance Power Drive, Get Your Own Army was produced by Steve Chahley and mixed by Ron Hawkins of alt-rock legends Lowest Of The Low. Elephants And Stars is the third project formed around the long-running creative partnership of Stittmann and bassist Mike MacMillan, both of whom also formed the core of the late-’90s/early-2000s groups Soap Opera and The First Time.
Check out Bled Out At The Scene above, sample more from Elephants And Stars below, and find them at their website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
