I wanted to write a song about the town where I grew up about 45 minutes outside of Chicago… Waukegan, IL. It's a violent town, a place where everyone was getting into something unsavory… gangbanging, drugs, guns. My neighbor and friend went to jail for killing a rival gang member with a hammer outside of his house when he was 16. Another childhood friend had his house raided because he was selling guns. He fled to Wisconsin and was eventually arrested for stabbing someone at a quinceañera. Violence was everywhere… it was a part of the culture of my hometown. Punk rock thrived alongside this thuggish mentality in Waukegan, and that scene was a big part of my escaping from all this madness.

On the beach of Lake Michigan, there's an old power plant. The powerlines stretch from the shore for miles inland, and they passed right by my old house. The powerlines were always this iconic image for me. You can look up at them and hear them gently humming and you can imagine Jesus hanging on each post for miles into infinity. But deep down you know that there is no god here… that it's every man for himself. Make the right decisions and you might get out, make the wrong ones and, like it says in the song, you'll "paint the prison walls with this dark saint's willing blood.” All these bleak experiences are reflected in the sound of 'Powerlines.'