by Lauren Rosier
Photos by Shervin Lainez
I recently had the opportunity to speak with bassist Rich Meyer of Brooklyn’s Highly Suspect to catch up about their recent headlining tour, music video for “Lydia”, and other things.
The alternative rock band just released their debut full length LP Mister Asylum on July 17 and Meyer spoke a bit about how they went about creating the record.
“There is no set process to it. Johnny will write a riff and a chorus or just a melody and we’ll all play together. We’ll figure the rhythm and composition of the song, then we’ll brush out the lyrics,” Meyer explains. “Sometimes he’ll have a song already written when he brings it to us. Sometimes I write a song or sometimes a song will come out of a jam.”
Highly Suspect has been having a lot of great successes recently. The band released a music video to YouTube for their single “Lydia” in late June and it recently hit over a million views. “Shooting the video was easy. We showed up and were there to bare witness. The difficult part of the video was figuring out the story,” Meyer says. “We went through 50 different treatments to find someone who actually had the concept that we agreed with. We knew right away when we read Steve’s treatment that it was metaphor for the song, like, suffocating, like waking up realizing you’re drowning, like being in a relationship that’s suffocating you and realizing that it’s happening.”
Highly Suspect has had the opportunity to play with several amazing bands like Chevelle, Halestorm, and will be sharing the stage alongside The Struts. It has been a long ride for the band. Meyer has had the opportunity to see and understand how a much larger band operates, deals with fans, and approaches things outside of the show.
“In order to make it work, you have to love each other, and be a family. All the bands that don’t have that quality, they aren’t making it like those guys are,” Meyer reaffirms.
