Lindsay & Mercy of Houston emo band football, etc. (see our interview at this location) have recently teamed up with John from Rose Ette and Brendan from Perfect Future to form a new screamy, emotive post hardcore act OVERO! Their debut 2-tracker “Cold Concrete/Shattered” takes the harsh and poignant mood of their predecessors and translates it into more emotional and complex vibe that’s both refreshing and thoughtful. We caught up with the band to give you their thoughts on both tracks and get you pumped for their future releases. Bon appétit!
Cold Concrete
Brendan: This song I actually wrote back when I moved to Houston almost two years ago. John and I had talked about doing a band that sounded like screamo back when it was called hardcore, keeping the riffs punchy and tight. But John was in a bunch of bands at the time, and we were never able to get together to get the project moving. So when Lindsay and Mercy contacted both me and John about doing a band together, I returned to this song. We hadn’t really talked about what type of band we were going to be, so I wasn’t sure if everyone would even be on board for something this heavy, but everyone was into it, which I was pumped for since this has always been my favorite genre of music.
Lindsay: Brendan wrote his lyrics first, and I kinda riffed of of that. His line “I’ll never feel whole again,” and the image of cold concrete instantly drew up a lot of recent events in my own life. Without getting too specific, my lyrics are about seeing a loved one in decline, and hoping that those final times spent with them would not define your memories of them.
Shattered
Brendan: After Cold Concrete, we wanted to write a song that had more room to breathe. That way in the future we could let the band grow a little more organically and not feel locked into only writing short, tight hardcore songs. Originally I had written the intro and the outro for an emo band that I was in that had only played one show. I never really liked the original middle part of that song, so I just kept the intro and outro and tried to figure out how I could bring those two parts together for Overo with some riffs that weren’t too disparate from “Cold Concrete.” Lyrically, this song tries to focus on the disorienting feeling of the time–how there were so many possibilities when young but the trajectory of life narrows.
Lindsay: Again, I took Brendan’s lead lyrically, but also went off in my own direction. In thinking of the line about photos behind glass, I thought about the shattering of glass, and about being behind that glass being looked at. Originally the end bit had no vocals, but we decided to add some, the lines “Is this even real or am I pretending?” just kinda came from thinking about some overwhelming experiences, good and bad, and thinking about the nature of reality in such times. It has been such a trip co-writing vocals because it is all so new to me, and even though we don’t necessarily talk at length about what our own lyrics are about, I find inspiration in Brendan’s imagery.
