r/TheFence's Song of the Day Database Update Day 9: The Audience

It's time for the Big one, the song I easily consider to be the climax of the album. Musically, this song is extremely similar to the climax of the preceding double album, "Gravity's Union". Deep, grungy guitar and powerful drum beats kick the listeners ass from start to finish. Zach and Josh trade time early on, and I love the interplay between the two, with Zach's grooves filling in the space between Josh's cymbals.

The Real: The lyrics are pretty aggressive, and could easily be read as an attack against either the music industry or the fans. Considering the title and chorus, I think the latter is who it was intended to reach, but both interpretations are valid. Consider...

"Thieves of our time

Watch as they rape your integrity

March as the beat suggests

Time ticks forward, towards the bottom of undoing all that

I once loved come take your piece of me, blood or bone

No matter, I'll still be here when you're

Done..."

The context as it applies to the music industry is pretty explicit, the industry is well known for it's exploitative nature, but the context as it applies to their fanbase, us, the Children of the Fence, is even more cutting. Naturally, the industry demands what the majority of fans demand, in order to maximize profits, and in our community, it is not a rare sentiment for us to want them to go "back to their roots", back to the sound of SSTB or IKSSE:3. Claudio has already expressed that his sound is changing as he grows and changes, and I believe this song is expressing his frustration with some of his supporters. With...

"This is my audience

Forever one together burning stars

Cut from the same disease

Ever longing, what and who we are..."

...he acknowledges the fact that like it or not, a band and it's fans are intertwined. The fans will always have wants of their own, and so will the band, and these wants will not always coincide. While "The Hard Sell" explicitly told us that like it or not, his sound will change, "The Audience" expresses his frustration that some people cannot accept that.

The Part: This is one of the few times I actually prefer the verse to the chorus. The grungy lines from Travis are sick as fuck, and as stated before, I love the musical "conversation" going on between Josh and Travis. I'm no musical expert, I don't know crap about music theory, but it sounds dope, and that's what matters to me.

Fantastic song.