Music by Chris Szkup, mixed by Dennis Leeflang @Livelong Productions, mastered by Joe Carra @ Crystal Mastering, artwork by Dan Verkys.
Chris Szkup – Guitars, Bass, Spoken Word
Ben Todd – Drums
Jose Guia – Piano and Keys
Richard Curran – Strings
Dan Verkys – Spoken Word
Tony Gilbert – Spoken Word
Richard Anderson – Spoken Word
Gavin Burgess – Spoken Word
I wrote this track on the day we found out Alexei Navalny was killed. When I found out it hit me pretty hard and it was one of those times I knew some music was going to come. As I was getting ready for the day after my coffee I started humming melodies to myself, and luckily I remembered everything when I got back to my instruments. This ended up being the “chorus” if you will, and was enough to get everything else going, and it happened quickly. At this point “Deeper Than The Underground” was actually going to be an EP of 6 songs. But the strength of this one I could feel right away. It had to go along with the other six songs I had completed at this point.
The title comes from a scene at the end of his movie where he is asked “what happens if you are killed”, and he goes on to say that ““We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes. We don’t realize how strong we actually are. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing, so don’t be inactive,”
When I thought about the impact of that scene and the way he delivers it, I thought “We Are Strong”. What a message.
And it also allowed me to think about other amazing feats of courage and strength I’ve witnessed in my life, so since we weren’t able to acquire enough people’s voiceovers for that spoken word section I ended up doing a bit where I ask how my Dad went on after going through so much, and also another personal hero, Jason Becker, who was set to take over the world of rock guitar in the late 80’s as a teenager, diagnosed with ALS at 19 and given a few years to live, but is still with us now and these days creates music that he hears in his head by programming a computer note by note with the muscles in his eyes. But speaking of those voiceovers I must send the biggest THANK YOU again to my friends Dan, Gavin, Kratae, Richard, Glen and Tony for adding their experiences to what was already a pretty meaningful piece. You guys really elevated it to another level.