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WAAX’s track-by-track guide to At Least I’m Free
WAXX vocalist Maz DeVita takes us through the band’s second album At Least I’m Free, one song at a time…
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- Maz DeVita
Aussie power-punks WAAX drop their second album At Least I'm Free tomorrow (August 12) in a flurry of hook-laden alt.rock with swathes of riot grrrl attitude. Tackling topics of break-ups, growing up and the imagined downfall of Jeff Bezos, there's a lot to unpack.
Here, vocalist Max DeVita guides us through every song on the record and how it came to be...
1Mermaid Beach
"From the moment it was born, we knew this track would open the album. It encapsulates the energy and tone of the whole record. It’s really ornate and beautiful, and when that riff comes in, you sort of go to another place. I’m super proud of the harmonies on this track."
2Read Receipts
"This song just sort of fell out pretty organically. James and I were staying on the Sunshine Coast and we’d written a few little songs in that session. James just started playing these beautiful chords on guitar and I heard the line 'don’t leave me on read' come into my head for some reason. I had been experiencing a tumultuous time in my personal life and this line just sort of rang true. Just that feeling of being helpless and left high and dry – 'come find me where you left me'. It goes in and out of desperation and scorn, and that’s really where I was at at that time."
3Man Like Me
"I had seen an ex say something on the internet, which sparked a bit of a rage in me, and I sort of recycled his words for the lyrics in the chorus this song. But yeah, it’s a conversation-style song where I’m basically talking to an ex. It’s almost a bit too personal, but I also knew it would be relatable for a lot of listeners. I especially love the opening drums in this song and how upbeat and fun it sounds – even though the lyrical content is a bit mean!"
4No Doz
"I wrote this song at the end of 2019, while I was in LA with an incredible artist named K.Flay. It’s a real different direction for us, but I think it shows how much we want to be more musically diverse as a band. I loved working on this track because K.Flay taught me how to diversify my phrasing. I think previous to the session I was very focused on melodies and K.Flay introduced me to more rhythmic phrasing styles. It’s also the first time we’ve used a proper drum sample in a song."
5Most Hated Girl
"I don’t think there can be a WAAX record without one big riff track. I was staying at my parents' house in the middle of lockdown in 2020, and I found an old diary of mine from when I was 16. Going through it was quite potent to me, for some reason; I think because I realised that not much has changed, the only thing that has changed is my inner perspective on myself and the world around me. Also honourable mention to my big scream at the end of the song – it’s always such a big moment when we play it live."
6Beam Me Up
"Beam Me Up is my personal favourite song on the record. To me it has all the things I’m looking for in a track; drama, dynamics, harmonies, big ripping guitar solos and heart. I think this song started with me bringing a little ditty to James one day, being super excited about it and knowing that there was a lot of potential there. Once we wrote the bones of this song, we knew straight away that it would be such an epic when we got to the studio – I think that’s where the song really came alive because we had all the tools around us to make it as massive as we possibly could. I wanted to make this track be our take on a Queen song, especially with that Seven Seas Of Rhye-esque harmony building in the middle."
7Dangerous
"Writing this song was probably the most nerve-racking moment of my life and career thus far. It was from another session during my LA trip at the end of 2019; this time with none other than Linda Perry, who is basically one of the best songwriters of all time. I’d never been overseas by myself before, let alone in the studio with one of the all-time greats, so I found myself in fight or flight mode and blocked out the reality of the situation – just working and keeping it together as best I could. Linda taught me so much, but one of the most potent pieces of advice that she gave me was to love and embrace my vocal at its rawest – up until that point I had gotten into a habit of masking my voice with vibrato and tremolo, but she told me that there was a real natural darkness to my tone and it was something special… Of course I’m gonna believe her – she knows her shit! I think having a piano ballad on the album works really well as a palate cleanser and once again demonstrates our hunger to be as diverse musically as we possibly can. It really came together in the studio with the boys. The demo was really raw – just piano and vocal – so we all put our heads together and really made a special moment out of it."
8Jeff On The Streets
"I think this song is quite a wildcard on the record and probably the most heavy in terms of theme and anger. We were just starting to come out of lockdown and like everyone else I was really fed up and wanted to make some noise about how frustrated I was with the state of the world. I wanted to imagine Jeff Bezos as a homeless person. Like, what if we flip the world upside down and what that would look like. It also has the name of the album in there stemming from the lyric, 'I am fucked up at least I’m free.'"
9Help Me Hell
"This was one of the earliest songs we wrote together and basically we just wanted to make a straight-forward punk song. I really wasn’t in the best place mentally when we wrote it, to be honest. Lyrically it’s quite desperate and I wanted to make it as emo as possible. It’s cool because it’s instantly recognisable from the opening riff, and melodically it’s sort of like a nursery rhyme. We just really thought the album needed a balls-to-the-wall song that was kind of no-bullshit. I also think it has one of our favourite bridges on the album."
10Same Bitch
"This song is just all attitude, honestly. I really wanted to incorporate the lovable villain energy. It’s a bit smug. Musically it’s one of my favourites on the album because the riffs are just incredible and there’s an awesome instrumental break, which just really takes it to another place."
11Whoever
"We have a really special place for this song in our hearts. It’s the first song we wrote as the current line-up of the band. And it’s the moment I could prove to myself that I could still write songs. At the beginning of the writing phase of this album I was pretty defeated and wasn’t sure if I was capable of still producing good work. My sense of self-worth and confidence had gone right down the toilet. It took a lot of perseverance and work to get myself back to where I wanted to be, but I’m so proud of how far I’ve come. This is the first song that I collaborated with James on, which birthed a really beautiful writing partnership. This song is just really honest and it builds so subtly. Whenever we’d show this demo to anyone it was an instant favourite, so I’m really excited to see how our community embraces it."
WAAX's new album At Least I'm Free is released on August 12 via Dew Process.
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