Singled Out: Wicked's Sunburn

Keavin Wiggins | 12-08-2023

Wicked just released the title track to their forthcoming album "Sunburn" and will premiere the video tonight (Dec 8) during a livestream. To celebrate we asked Danny to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

Without "Sunburn," there would be no album release of the same title. Matter of fact, the band might be on a very different path than we are today and most likely one that wasn't taking us forward.

I remember the world shut down and everything about life that seemed guaranteed was suddenly in question. We had just finished three sold out shows in NYC and Brooklyn to find ourselves entering what would become almost three years of separation from our rock n roll community.

There seemed to be this shift in our minds as well, which was probably a long time coming. We fired our management and realized the power that we held as a group of devoted friends living together for about a decade. This would all seep into our writing process as we embarked on a journey to build our own studio and record some of our classic hits that had never seen a proper record release. Thankfully what was almost just a recording session of classic songs, that we had been grinding into the pavement for years, found the e-brake pulled on it midway through pre-production.

With that abrupt halt in our recording process, we took a step back as inspiration seemed to strike us like lightning. On a warm spring night, we sat on our front porch with acoustic guitars under the stars, digging into some fresh ideas. Chad had a rhythm guitar riff where the first eighth note was silenced at the top of the measure, giving an illusion of being in a different time signature, but still in 4/4 time. The riff was upbeat, driving, and I remember how liberating it felt as it caught peoples' attention as they passed by. For a bassist, Danny needed to meddle in Scotty V's lead guitar writing and came up with the hook by mouthing it in the most eccentric manner. Scotty V then matched that with his contribution of finishing touches to vocal harmonies. The lyrics almost wrote themselves being pulled from an aggressive pent-up place inside us that touched on our mental anguishes from the recent years, but left you reminded that it wasn't going to spoil our fun we were determined to have. From "Stockholm syndrome" to our careless love lives, "Sunburn" and its lyrics set the tone for a writing session of all new WICKED tunes. This was even the first track we recorded with double bass... Gunnar didn't want me to forget to mention that!

The song and album really circle around the highs and lows of "human being" and what it has been like for us over all these years being in a band. "Sunburn" specifically harkening to that old notion of "too much of a good thing." We were pleased to find a summer anthem-worthy song inside of our writing process, but also slip in that duality we love to toy with.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album and their Rock N Roll Circus Show livestream tonight where they will premiere the song's new video here