“10th of July” is the day me and Jake first met. We were two guys who talked music only for a few weeks and then met up for a beer and we literally just bounced off each other. We loved the same bands, wanted the same things from music and shared an unrivaled passion for it. We agreed after that first meeting to start working on music together and we’d start by sharing some examples of our work. So after I left the bar I rushed home and sent Jake a recording from my phone of two songs I’d written really basic and rushed. He then sent me ten pieces of music all fully produced, just missing lyrics. One of those tracks was entitled “10th July.” I asked why he’d called it this when all the other files were entitled song 1, song 2, song 3 and so on, he explained that he’d just written and recorded that piece that morning before we met and I joked that if we did ever turn that into a song we should keep the name…and that’s exactly what we did.
“10th of July” was the second song we wrote lyrics for and I remember we met up at Jake’s parent’s house (he’s converted his old room into a studio) and we talked about what we wanted to say with this song. When we met, we both shared stories of frustrations of previous bands we’d been in that had struggled for various reasons and one of the common reasons was members not pulling their weight or giving enough to the band they were in, so we decided to write “10th of July” as our promise to each other to always work as hard as we can for Cuecliché.
“Been here before, lost our way” literally referring to the times before when we’ve tried to make bands work but something pulled it off course. “I’ll be here right by your side” – this is the closing line of the chorus harmonies and the real pay off, and is literally us promising to be there for each other and work at this.
The intro to this song is an absolute pleasure to play. It’s so big and so bold, it just grabs your attention, but Jake will tell you it was an absolute nightmare to teach me. I couldn’t follow his hands as he played his part so I had to film him playing it, slow it down and watch it back to learn it and then gradually speed it up to the pace we play it today. Jake tried for about an hour to teach me it in person but we gave up and turned to technology. Now my hands play the song themselves and I don’t need to think about it.
One of my favourite lines of this song comes in the first verse: “Together lost in a world filled with burning lights.” The first time I ever played live in a band I remember I was really nervous about being on stage with all these eyes looking at me. I’d never done anything like that before so I was really concerned about seeing judgement in people’s faces but when I got on stage, I was absolutely blinded by the stage spotlights so I couldn’t see anything but the guys on stage with me; from my nose forward it was all a blur. That’s how I’ve been able to get over stage fright now – every show I tell myself I won’t be able to see anyone but Jake and Keith and I know they ‘got my back’ so there’s no point being nervous.
The second verse of the song is all about how everything we’ve done before we joined Cuecliché has been building to make us able to take this band to a level none of us have been before. “Made mistakes now we’ve learned from the things we’ve tried.”
I remember when Keith first joined us at rehearsal to join the band. When we played this song he just brought so much raw power to it, we knew we had the line-up for Cuecliché all finished and we were ready to take it out to the world.
