The new Protest the Hero singles "The Canary" and "From the Sky" sonically, sound excellent. But have you been paying attention to the lyrics? If you have not, you may have missed that Protest The Hero made an anti Trump record.
Frontman Rody Walker spoke to Loudwire, and confirmed that while he is Canadian, he started writing the album during Trump's rise to prominence, and the rise of MAGA culture. The album was eventually delayed so Roddy could deal with is vocal issues, but the issues were just more apparent as they kept recording the album.
Walker elaborated on what the lyrics on Palimpsest are about:
“Well, it was being written like three years ago. Trump had just taken office and all this stuff was happening; all the MAGA hats were out in full force and all sorts of stuff like that. And I started thinking about the definition of greatness. And I have a feeling people are going to view this as though it’s talking negatively about the United States, and that is not entirely it, because the greatness that Donald Trump and all his cronies want to return to is only great for the old, white, male, rich elite.
“That is the greatness of America that the rest of the world views as its tragic flaw. And I wanted to discuss that aspect of things, but I also wanted to discuss the greatness that we actually view as America’s greatness. Because there is greatness, there’s beauty, there’s all sorts of stuff. There’s innovation, there’s an incredible history. And I wanted to discuss both the negative and the positive and identify what I personally find the greatness to be."
He noted that some songs took new meaning in light of what's happening in the world. “The song that actually kind of scared me a little bit was “The Fireside.” My wife was editing the lyrics to that when this all started, like the pandemic, and everyone started taking more seriously all the shutdowns and stuff like that. And it’s talking about the fireside chats during the Second World War, when the president [Franklin D. Roosevelt] came over the radio and spoke to everyone on a daily basis. And she’s going, “This is kind of fucked up. It seems like it was written yesterday about today.” It’s supposed to be about the Great Depression, so when it’s as general as that, I guess you could apply it to our current times. Because they keep calling this a recession, but I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this without something that really resembles an actual depression.”
When asked if he's afraid that the band would lose some conservative fans, Rody didn't seem too worried.
“Honestly, even if that happened — good. If we got a bunch of [the] super right-wing, alternative conservative element that are listening to our band thinking everything’s hunky dory, it’s not hunky dory. I don’t want those people listening to our music anyways. They can kick rocks as far as I’m concerned. Fuck ’em.”
Palimpsest comes out tomorrow, Thursday, June 18. Pre-order it here.
