UTG TRACK-BY-TRACK: The Year Fifteen – ‘As A World Entire’

The Republic Of Wolves’ Billy Duprey is poised to release his excellent debut LP through his solo project, The Year Fifteen, on Sunday, March 23 and over the course of this past week, he’s been rolling out promotional efforts in the form of song streams for listeners to experience bit by bit as we await the official arrival of As A World Entire.

After premiering the album’s fourth track with us here at UTG earlier this week, Duprey took the time to provide us with a track-by-track breakdown for the entirety of his newest full-length effort. Explaining the origins, inspirations, and themes of each song on As A World Entire, we’re able to further connect with this release and understand where these songs began, what they evolved from, and what they eventually became throughout Duprey’s creative process that has spanned the last few years of working on this album.

Below, you can read Duprey’s own detailed analysis of each of the eleven tracks found on his forthcoming debut release from The Year Fifteen.

1. “Patience”
I always knew I wanted this song to be the first track on the record. I wanted something short and sweet to serve as an introduction. Sonically, I’ve always been interested in taking electronic sounds and fusing them with organic elements to make something that sounds natural and yet otherworldly. This style was somewhat inspired by Jimmy Tamborello (of The Postal Service and Dntel). There are some backing vocals that borrow lyrics from the last song on the album, “Honesty”, and lyrically, I think both songs play with similar ideas and feelings. Mason Maggio and Christian Van Deurs (of Tigers On Trains, and my other band The Republic Of Wolves) provided the harmonies for this song.

2. “Objectivity” (Music Video)
This was the first song actually recorded for the album back in 2011. Stylistically, it was heavily influenced by emo and alternative bands from the 90s like Weezer and Built To Spill, as well as Brand New’s Your Favorite Weapon. I filmed a music video for this song back before any other songs had been recorded for the album. Lyrically, this song is about trying to help someone to get out of a ditch that they may be in and to move on and accept the reality of a situation. This could be interpreted as an actual message from one person to another, or as some kind of internal conflict.

3. “A Thought”
“A Thought” came together as a demo a couple years ago, when I was a sophomore in college. I was worrying about a lot of different things ranging from relationships to creative mental blocks and this jumble of thoughts and feelings kind of spilled out into this song. I had kind of forgotten about this song for a few years, until I was in the bulk of the album’s recording process. I decided to pull this song out and rework it because I felt like it had some potential and the ideas worked well with some of the newer songs I had written. The concepts behind the sound of this song are not unlike those of “Patience,” as I previously described.

4. “Sweater, Half Open” (Stream)
I feel like this song and “Objectivity” are cut from the same cloth, although this song is slightly more abrasive and rowdy, whereas “Objectivity” is a bit more laid back. Conceptually, this song is about working on yourself and trying to take everything you’ve done, including any mistakes you may have made, and to just put them behind you and build off of that. It’s about trying to move on with your life and just getting back to who you really are at your core.

5. “Evening Conversations”
This song I’ve always seen as kind of the centerpiece of the record. A lot of the ideas from the songs that come before and after it kind of collide in this song and the end of this song has one of the most prominent emotional climaxes on the album, in my opinion. I had demo’d this song out a few years ago and I grew to really dislike it and had no plans of ever revisiting it, but Mason and Christian convinced me to try re-recording it. I hesitated to do it, but I ended up really liking the song after re-imagining it and it’s become one of my personal favorites. Lyrically, this song is very important to me and it covers a lot of different aspects of my life. My friend Stephanie Tolino did some backing vocals on this song that I think really give it a cool, original vibe. The influences of the song range from Straylight Run to Paul Simon to Anathallo.

6. “Out Of Sync”
“Out Of Sync” came to be from me experimenting with trying to make something that had some more pop/mainstream appeal than some of my other songs. I started with recording a simple beat on a tom drum and added claps and shaker. I went on to add the main guitar riff, which was loosely inspired by lo-fi indie rock bands like The Strokes. This track is special because of one part in particular that features lead vocals from all four members of my other band The Republic Of Wolves (Mason Maggio, Gregg Dellarocca, Christian Van Deurs, and myself), which is something that we’ve never done before. I think fans of the band will really enjoy it.

7. “As A World Entire”
For me, if an album is going to have a title track, it should really stand out. This song is very different from all the other tracks on the album, which to me makes it notable enough to serve as a title track. It’s the darkest and heaviest song on the album and it’s probably the most similar to the sound of The Republic Of Wolves. I really wanted to tap into my post-hardcore influences and make something that sounds really big and emotionally heavy; something akin to Moving Mountains or As Cities Burn. Lyrically, there’s a lot of metaphor and symbolism that can be interpreted in many different ways. My intended meaning behind the song is not as important as the overall feeling that it evokes, in this case, and my hope is that listeners will attach their own memories and emotions to the song and create their own understanding of what it’s about.

8. “Colours” (Stream)
“Colours” is the oldest song on the album. The original demo was recorded back in 2008 with Mason Maggio and my friend Mike Iraggi for my first band, From AC To Outside. Only about a minute of the demo version was written and recorded and this unfinished song was eventually lost in the vaults. While recording the album in 2012, I rediscovered the song and decided to try to bring it back and re-write/re-record it. I really like this song and I think it has kind of a mid-late 90s emo sound that has started to see some resurgence recently. The title of the song is a reference to my debut EP, We Contained Colours (which was never actually released), but it also relates to the lyrics on a certain level.

9. “It’s Been So Hard” (Stream)
For this song, I wanted to merge the folky sound of “Evening Conversations” with the more indie rockish sound of “Objectivity” but I also wanted to give the song its own unique characteristics. I put a lot of emphasis on the percussion and filled it with claps and tambourine to really add a strong bounce to the song and make it pop. I also really wanted to have some female lead vocals, and some back-and-forth vocals and I think Stephanie Tolino did a great job with that. The melody in the chorus of this song has gone through a few different iterations and I’m happy with how it turned out in the end. I thought this song would be good to release as the first single because it encompasses some of the different sounds and emotions found throughout the album, but it’s also very poppy and fun-sounding.

10. “With An English Smile”
Like “Colours,” this song was demo’d a few years back, maybe in 2009. Although, this song is different in that a lot of the original instrumental tracks that were recorded in 2009 were actually used and re-mixed for the new version. This song was written without a specific vision in mind and the lyrics kind of came together as a random stream of thought. Melodically, I was inspired by Ace Enders and his various projects, but I wanted to couple that style with very electronic-sounding music. The chorus features prominent gang vocals and some layered background vocals (a la Taking Back Sunday) which I added to ironically evoke the sense of a sing-along, but with lyrics that could seem kind of dark and strange. I always imagined this song as the penultimate track on an album, for some reason.

11. “Honesty”
This song was always meant to be the closing track on the album. I wanted to write a song that took all of the ideas and feelings from the songs that came before it and really try to wrap it up with some kind of “answer.” I like albums that end with a sense of catharsis. I hope that comes across to the listeners and people are left with the feeling that this album is a complete piece. This song is very important to me and probably my favorite on the record. Some have said the song reminds them of Something Corporate, which may have been a subconscious influence, and I take that as a compliment. If someone somewhere feels some kind of emotional attachment to any or all of these songs, then I will feel accomplished.

The Year Fifteen

Photo credit: Rebecca Reed

Brian Leak
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