One With The Underdogs: Demos

May 5

This session was mainly to serve the purpose for Terror to track the songs for their contribution to the Ringworm split 7" released by Deathwish in August of 2003. As soon as we finished tracking Lowest Of The Low in September 2002, as those were the only 9 songs we had in our catalog, we were really focused on writing more songs for our next record and so we could expand our set.

I have to assume this was all the material we had at the time although I do remember the title track "One With The Underdogs" being a track we wrote pretty early on so I'm surprised it's not present here. Anyhow....

We had plans to put "Out Of My Face" and "Nothing To Lose" on the Ringworm split so we got our best performances here. This demo took place right before we went on a run of East Coast dates with Ramallah and Ringworm and then flew to Europe for Terror’s first European tour which found the band playing a run of shows with Born From Pain, and then a 20-something date tour around mainland Europe with Biohazard and Caliban.

All I’ve Got - This was an attempt at writing a big singalong song with a late 1980's NYHC sound like Youth Of Today etc. Of course it sounds a bit like maybe it could've been on a Carry On record...? That's the energy we were going for when writing this tune.

Find My Way - One of the first 4 songs, maybe the second song we wrote for Underdogs. I really like this song and I wish it would've been a bigger song for Terror. Maybe if it was earlier in the sequence of Underdogs it would've been a more favored song? Love the mosh in this one and then when Freddy did vox over it on the proper LP recording - magic!!!

Keep Your Mouth Shut - Here we have an unfinished version of Keep Your Mouth Shut. I have to say that I remember feeling like we were writing a killer tune when we were beating this one up in Nick's studio. I recall the breakdown of this tune being really challenging to finish.........as I stated I sorta knew this song was going to be a standout for Terror and the breakdown had to be as good as the verse and chorus. I think the breakdown to this song was written closer to January 2004 when [One With The] Underdogs was recorded. This song kills and hasn't left Terror’s setlist since it was released.

Not This Time - Here it is!!! This is the jam right here, my favorite Terror tune from the era when I was a creative input to the band. This is the first song we wrote upon Lowest Of The Low being recorded. I really wish this song was written and recorded for Lowest Of The Low, but it also helped make Underdogs as strong as it is. I think Scott really did a great job on the vocal patterns and lyrics on this. Love the groove in the chorus of this song. This tune made its debut in January 2003 in Arizona. Terror was playing this song for a full year and a half at live shows prior to it even being released. I may or may not have seen a lot of folks get hurt to this tune.

Let The Past Be The Past - okay we obviously know Terror was highly influenced by Madball and if you know Madball, you know the spirit of where this song comes from. We wanted a mid-paced singalong song that was iconic, anthemic, etc. I really love this song, I particularly love the drums Nick plays during the verse. The sprinkled double kick made that sound super tuff. When you're in a band sometimes you get stuck on these songs or these ideas that no matter how much effort you put into it, you can't get what you want out of it. I think this is a good example of that. Everything about this song is good. I like the riffs, I love the drums, Scotts lyrics and vocal patterns are killer. There's nothing inherently wrong with this song, but, I think it maybe just didn't match up to the energy of the other songs we were producing at the time. This song was a "hidden track" on the CD. I wouldn't call it a throwaway but, just one of those songs that didn't turn out the way you might've envisioned it turning out.

Nothing To Lose* - I can't remember where the raw idea for this tune came up. The verse riff sounds like something me and Nick would've jammed at any one of our rehearsals. He really beats the hell out of those drum skins. This is just one of those fast tunes with a heavy breakdown.

Out Of My Face* - Iconic intro here. Scott knocked it out of the park with that. I remember being STOKED when we recorded this at Nick's studio. That bridge was taken from a Slayer tune on Divine Intervention. This tune was mainly driven by having a super stompy verse and then dropping the stomp to a groove. Listening now I'm surprised we went fast, maybe we should've wrote the song to maintain that stomp in the intro? Regardless there's no reason to question it, everything came together on this tune.

- Todd

*Not included in the demos

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