Indie-pop artist Zac Hoina delves into deeply personal territory with his latest single, 'We Don't Make It', delivering an emotionally charged track that draws inspiration from a haunting dream and the transformative power of live performance.
While echoing the melancholy beauty of influences like Coldplay and The Backseat Lovers, 'We Don't Make It' resonates with Hoina's own voice, possessing a unique and wonderfully soulful quality true to his artistry. Recorded remotely between New York City and Baltimore, the song boasts a DIY ethic with Hoina himself at the production helm.
In the true DIY spirit, the challenges faced during the recording process ultimately shaped the final product. "I ended up deciding that the most honest version of the song was by far the best," Hoina explains. "I cleaned up the tracks I recorded at home and that's what became We Don't Make It. I think it was always supposed to be that way."
Hoina continued, speaking about the origins of the song, "The song came from a dream I had almost a year ago. I was in a cab driving home with someone I cared about at the time and she was asleep on my shoulder. Suddenly she jolted up and looked at me crying and just said 'We don't make it, do we?' It ripped me to pieces and the song was written the next morning."
The vulnerability of the initial scratch recording adds a raw edge that perfectly captures the despairing question at the song's core. As Hoina sings of a fading connection, his voice channels universal anxieties about love and loss. It's a potent reminder of music's ability to transmute personal pain into a shared cathartic experience.
"This is one of those songs that spent a lot of time getting away from me," Hoina says. Yet, through the crucible of live performance, 'We Don't Make It' has found its true form, becoming a crowd favourite. "The band plays this song with everything that we've got left in us at the end of a show because it means that much to all of us, for entirely separate reasons."
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