Exclusive Lesson: Tonight Alive — "Breaking & Entering"

I got really excited when this song was first written. I guess for me it was a perfect step in the direction I saw for our first album, and I think it turned out to be exactly what I wanted.

This song really grasped what we were trying to do at the time in becoming better songwriters with using dynamics and structure.

I deliberated over the opening riff for ages because it is really simple and didn't sound too great to me on first listen, but I couldn't come up with anything better at the time so I left it and it definitely grew on me.

Funnily enough, the intro guitars in the first intro track "Eject, Eject, Eject!" was the original riff for "Breaking & Entering" but didn't seem to fit right to me so I ended up using it as an intro to the CD.

I think recording the cleans in the verse was my favorite part of this song. In previous recordings I was never able to get exactly the clean tone I want, but Mark really nailed it, I think. We used an old Traynor head that Mark had, and we barely needed to tweak it. It just sounded perfect and warm and exactly what we needed. I also used Jake's Telecaster for this.

We released this song first for the album and I think it was a great way of showing what the album was about and where we were at at that point in time.

Whakaio Taahi plays guitar in Tonight Alive, who released their latest album, What Are You So Scared Of?, February 14 on Fearless Records. For more about the band, visit their official website and Facebook page.