The Air Up There Acoustic - Where do I start with Air..... I originally wrote this song about one of my Grandfathers passing away. I'd had the riff and music for a while and when i decided to make one of the Freedom album songs about him the music just seemed to be the perfect fit. That riff... That God dam riff... I'm so proud of that riff. I have now lost all 3 of the Grandfathers I knew growing up, and I feel the lyrics are a great reflection of all of them.

Over time it's evolved into so much more, for so many people. We've had so many messages from around the world. People telling stories about lost loved ones and what this song means to them. We've played it for people at shows in memory of their lost ones, and also for people we've lost. Most recently one of our good mates Shannon Red who started Broken Skateboards. So close we considered him a brother ❤️

It always was asked about an acoustic version, and always made sense to do one. We finally were able to find the time to do it in the sessions for the new album. So this song goes to all the people who have lost someone, all the people who have shared their stories, all the people who asked for an acoustic version, Matt Dodd, Lee Bass, Shannon Red, My 3 grandfathers and my Mum.... But most importantly this song goes to my Nan... Who whilst always being super supportive of my loud, fast punk rock band always wanted a version more in this style. Who when the first time she heard it told me she could close her eyes and picture her and my Pop dancing to it...

My President - We have a habit of re-recording old songs. But it doesn't really fit on the upcoming full album. We already have one mid tempo 'take a breath' song on the album with "Blinding Light Through Tired Eyes" and when we needed one more song for the EP to go with Air and Damage it made sense to be this one.

My President is a song from our first EP that remains in our live set a lot. We use it as a settler in the beginning of sets to get sound right and relax into it. Like many of the early recorded songs we weren't happy with the first recording. It was also used to gauge our mix for the upcoming full album as it has all the elements of the album within it somewhere. Riffs, fast beat, slow beat, back up harmonies, gang vox. The mix sounds fantastic. Yesterday I showed Matt and Dan who were in the line up back then the final mix of the song and they were blown away. Speaking of, I love how adolescent the gang vox pieces sound hahahaha. Back when we could only write gang vox because none of us could sing harmonies. Back when we thought punk rock was always super political 🤦🏻‍♂️. Some of the lyrics make me cringe a bit now. So many cliché political punk rock song words. Protagonist, weathered fist, raise your voice etc. After that first EP I'd say we've definitely moved away from political stuff. Freedom only really has Abandon Ship, and the only song that could be taken as political on the upcoming album is actually about a video game I was playing throughout all the demo sessions. I can't speak for the others but for me personally it's been a conscious move away, especially on the upcoming album.

However that's another subject for another time, I digress, back to My president. Despite it's lyrical simplicity I still love the song. Was the first song i ever wrote music for in No Quarter. The train of thought at the time when we wrote the lyrics was that our prime minister John Howard just blindly followed George Bush in everything he said, so it was like we had Bush as President of Australia. Times were simpler back then, and it always takes me back to what was a very exciting time in my life. Recording the No More Guns EP was a hell of a time and I never in my wildest dream thought it'd lead me here.

2 weeks left!! The Air Up There Acoustic EP!! 24.9.21!! Let's talk about the 3rd song, yup, the Metallica Cover. Damage, Inc. off 1986's Master of Puppets!

Many, many moons ago Paul and I always talked about how cool it would be to be able to be in a band in a position to release a bad ass cover of a song like Damage Inc or Disposable Heroes off the Master of Puppets Album. That album is ridiculous, riffs, tempo, lyrics, everything about it. There's some pretty deep song writing there. This was waaaay back when Paul was in New Sedition and No Quarter still had the first EP line up. Somehow at all the house shows or whatever me and Paul would find ourselves blind talking about old school albums and what we'd cover if we were in a band together. He used to get so passionate about it. I also have another good mate Grahame who is very supportive who always said "Maaaaateee, a Metallica cover?? It'd have to be special to pull it off". Well, we got there. It was a challenge for us all but super stoked with how it turned out!!!!

It took some drunken tour chats to convince Chris and Darcy, even they can see now it was fun and worth the effort. A big part of me pushing for it was knowing how much it'd mean to Paul. He loved every minute of it, and crushed it. Him and Darcy split the solo, so Darcy takes over at the end. When Paul did his solo for it he was being heaps nervous then bam!! Laid it down in pretty much one take. Later he told me he'd spent hours going over different tabs and videos to make sure he did it as accurate as possible. That's just how much he loves music❤️ I think we all crushed it to be fair. Chris was worried how he'd sing it, but I think he nailed it. Josh's bass rumbling along it tight as. Darcy's section of the solo he also laid down ridiculously fast, and not to mention the production effort he's put in, it sounds amazing. It's a perfect taste of how the full album will sound sonically. As for me, I think I was 2 takes, maybe 2 and a half?? Talk about some cardio...

There's a lot of Metallica covers out there, we wanted to do one of their songs that we were inspired by instead of their later stuff. Those fast choppy palm mute driven Hetfield riffs have inspired all of our song writing. There's also a million punk rock covers out there. But we wanted to do something a little different. Being a punk rock band with a lot of metal style riffs, we thought this suited well. I imagine there'll be a bazillion Metallica fans who will throw shade, but we had a blast and I hope u enjoy it!