Gorging on the eclectic sprawl of the guitar-music cannon, and latching onto the traditions that get their blood pumping, Eades’ new single Reno is a situational story whereby the main character has snapped at the unforgiving nature of the rat race, and goes out to deliberately commit arson in an attempt to ‘save’ the people around him from monotony and apathy.
Told from three perspectives: witnesses to the event, the perpetrator, and a beer-soaked faux-intellectual attempting to comment on the state of affairs in a way that sounds much more profound than it really is, as lyricist Tom O’Reilly describes: “He’s a coked-up pub philosopher who’s watched one Chomsky interview, and decides that he understands the arsonist, and has to preach to those nearby about how we’re all ‘slaves to the system, maaaan’ ”.
It also contains a voiceless character from Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’. “Did you hear he got shot down in Reno? The shooter had no reason but to watch a man die”, report the general public during the second verse. “I liked the idea that the character in our song goes on to get shot by Johnny Cash in Reno” – highlighting the cyclical nature of indiscriminate violence. The sense of territories being (re)discovered again highlights the band’s forward-looking respect for musical history.
Whilst the song is intentionally not offered as social commentary, rather a farcical glance laced with self-awareness, the drudgery of the personal grind was part inspiration. As Tom concludes: “At this point in my life my CV looks like an A-Z of all the different 9-5 ruts you can get stuck in, so it’s unsurprising to me that the words and the delivery of Reno quickly fell out of me.”
Reno is out now. Find out more by clicking here.
