Nocturnal Me released their new EP, Two Faced, just two days ago via our friends at Apparition Records. We love the EP over here at PropertyOfZack, so we thought it’d be a great idea to have Dave Melillo from the band write up a track-by-track guide behind all the songs for fans of the band, and Dave was kind enough to take care of it for us. So read up and enjoy, and make sure to check out the EP if you have yet to!

Get You Back
Pretty self explanatory here. This is a collaboration track that I wrote last summer… I always felt like it was a super strong song, but for a very long time I had no idea what to do with it. Then I started playing Sonic The Hedgehog and everything clicked. I’ve always loved the 64 bit soundtracks in Sega/Nintendo games and I thought that the nostalgic vibe of those sounds would compliment the message in the song really well. The intro to this song is actually composed of 27 different instruments, all working together to form that warm, quirky and slightly annoying 64 bit sound that hopefully brings listeners back a few days. 

Love Is A Lie
Sometimes, repetition is your friend. With this song I was trying to create a vibe more than I was trying to push a message. The lyrical content in this song is very simple and straight forward. You know what the song is about in the first 15 seconds or so, but the real meat of the song comes in the progression of the track as a whole. Throughout the song different layers are added musically and vocally to conjure a certain emotion in the listener that goes beyond what you can find on the surface. I do believe that lyrics are important, but I find it more challenging to make listeners feel a certain emotion through the music you produce.

Weeknd
This song is all about FUN. I’m sure a lot of people will be critical of the lyrical content and production because it is SO far away from anything this band has ever done, but if they are, they’re missing the point. This is the song you pre-game to… This is the song that you bump in the car with your friends and fist pump to like you’re at the Jersey shore. I always loved the musical composition of this song, especially at the top, because its very inviting to the listener. The sounds provided by my dude Dave Siegel inspired me to write a song that painted a vivid picture of a night to remember. 

Without You
If there is any song on this EP that represents the journey Nocturnal Me has made as a band, it’s “Without You”. Mikey’s work on the drums here is phenomenal and Tank completely changed the vibe of the song through his performance on bass guitar. They took a shoddy acoustic demo and turned it into a Maroon 5 song on steroids. This song is the only indication of where we have been as artists in our past. There’s a tinge of that emo/pop sound in the choruses and there is a TON of Springsteen influences throughout the track, especially in the bridge which is almost identical to the bridge in “Born To Run”. 

Call Me
When I was writing this album I was extremely into Ready by Trey Songz. What he did on that album captured my imagination in several ways and I wanted to pay tribute while writing/recording this EP. “Call Me” is the only song on this EP that I wrote completely by myself… I wanted to show off my vocal chops and I wanted to make sure I included some type of positive love song on the record, seeing that most of the other songs had a cynical vibe to them. I’m extremely happy with the way “Call Me” turned out, BUT this sound is definitely something the band, and myself, will develop over years to come.