Chris DeLine

Singled Out is a feature focusing on the stories behind a song, as told by the artists who made it. In this edition, guitarist and vocalist Bo Becker digs into the song “Gaze of Colossus” by Glass Ox. In our discussion, Becker touches the process of building the track, an update on the development of new music from the band, and using the colossus as a metaphor, which is where we dive in here.

villin: Lyrically the song opens with echoed vocals remarking on the appearance of the colossus before the song comes thrashing in, aligned in the story with the colossus bearing its wrath upon the observer. Keeping those lyrics in mind, the music creates something of a battle scene in the mind – was that the intention when structuring the song?

Bo Becker: I suppose that does make sense but there was no direct intention there. When I’m adding my vocals into our songs it really is about whether or not the part sounds good. The story on the other hand is basically a metaphor for the erosion of privacy, especially digital privacy.

villin: When building the track out, do you remember the process of how it took shape? Was it built around a riff, or did it come together much more collaboratively?

Bo Becker: The song was built around that main ascending guitar hook, everything was kind of packed around that. It actually wasn’t finished going into the studio so this one was basically written without us being in the room together or anything.

villin: On the Bandcamp page there was a note about the drums being recorded in Des Moines while the rest of the track was recorded in Marshalltown. Is that standard practice at this point for the band and what sort of dynamic does that bring to the final cut of the song?

Bo Becker: So this track was actually left over from the sessions we did for our last record, Winds of Violence. We went in with basically a demo I had thrown together, tracked drums in the studio with Phil Young in Des Moines, then sat on it until this past summer when we started tracking the rest of the instruments for it. As far as the dynamic of doing it that way, I enjoy the time and freedom I get from not having to be under pressure in the studio. I have a small studio setup in Marshalltown that can do guitars and vocals well enough, we just need to do drums in a legit studio, I can’t do them at my studio.

villin: Is the track the first taste of a new album?

Bo Becker: No, in fact I would say this is the last you’ll get of our last record. The new album, so far, seems like it could go a few different directions but we have never stayed in one lane in terms of genre or style. I have probably five or six solid demos on new songs and I know Mythias [Keahna] has riffs for songs as well, so I’m excited to see how it progresses.

For more from Glass Ox, follow the band via Facebook and Instagram, and listen to “Gaze of Colossus” via Apple Music, Bandcamp, and Spotify.

[This article was first published by villin.]