Download the full-length MP3 for free here.
As mentioned in an earlier post, this song came from a random idea from one of our fans, Chris Repetti. He sent a note on Facebook and it instantly made sense to us. So we did it! And we thank him. He’s a fan of TalkRadar, so that’s why the song debuted on TalkRadar #157 first.
More details after the jump.
Jude and I are both big Beatles fans, and our other song in the works was giving us some difficulty, so when Chris’ idea came in, we thought “this will be easy, let’s just bang this out, it will be fun.” Well, it was fun, but it wasn’t as easy as we thought! Jude tackled Ringo’s drum lines with relative ease, and they sounded really good out of the gate. He also threw in some guide parts for me so I could assemble the rest around his temporary keyboard melodies. I didn’t have a guitar that sounded quite like George’s (especially with his flatwound strings) so I got as close as I could with the Variax 500 and a POD HD500. I wound up selling a bass and buying another one, just to try to get that McCartney tone right. The Variax 700 bass does a great Hofner impression, and it’s going to be a lot more useful to me in the studio in the future.
I have messed around with that guitar riff for years, but when I got serious about learning all the parts, I found there are multiple interpretations in books and tabs and things that show you how to play the song. Then I found my OWN way that combined a lot of those transcriptions. I then realized that I had been playing the bass part wrong for 20 years. (Fellow bassists: No, it doesn’t start on the open E like you’d think!) Then I cut the vocals and realized something was missing — a lot more vocals. Without double-tracking the three-part harmony, it sounded weak and thin; when we ended up with six vocal tracks, THEN it sounded right.
The addition of Jude’s angry rants was a “let’s try it and see” addition which really worked this time. We’d already finished the instrumentation but we both felt, as much as we loved the song and the lyrics, people who were tuning in for the jokes would wonder “Where’s the comedy?” during the solo. (The other fear was “why did you ruin a nice Beatles cover with all that ranting stuff?” But then we realized…if you wanna hear the song, just play the original!) So Jude — sweet, innocent, rational, polite, smiling Jude — did research into how gamers scream at each other online (did I mention he’s a scientist by day?) and, gritting his teeth while screaming into the mic, channeled something that was very much not the real him. I added bleeps (because let’s face it, bleeps themselves are inherently funny) and we finally had something we liked, after many more mixes than we expected.
But you know what? I really feel it was worth the extra effort. You don’t get a second chance to release a song on the internet. Go forth, spread the love, share the link, and hell, buy a t-shirt now in preparation for the next PAX event you attend, you cheap [BLEEP]. These [BLEEP]ing songs don’t make themselves.
Lyrics!
Got a good reason, for kicking that whiny jerk out
Got a good reason, I don’t need to hear that guy shout, now
He was a rage quitter, lousy teammmate, yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out
He’s a sore loser, he couldn’t shoot anything
Really sore loser, he blamed his lag and his ping, now
He was a rage quitter, temper tantrum, yeah
It took him so long to drop out, but he dropped out
Threw his controller, we saw it fly from his hands
Poor controller, I wonder where it will land, now
He was a rage quitter, angry baby yeah
It took him so long to lash out, but he lashed out
Rage quitter, rage quitter, yeah
Rage quitter, rage quitter, yeah