Bad Omens frontman Noah Sebastian has opened up on the writing process behind the band’s huge hit ‘Just Pretend’.
He spoke with us for our 2023 Rock Sound Awards Issue as Bad Omens picked up the title of Best International Artist.
During the interview, we asked him about why he thought that track from ‘The Death Of Peace Of Mind’ had become such a big crossover success, hitting No.1 on multiple alternative and rock charts and reaching a Gold certification in the US.
He said “I think it just caught this momentum. It’s a really great song that could transcend our band, you know what I mean? It is easy to cover – I think it could have been a huge hit as a country song if another artist wrote it and delivered it the correct way in the studio. I think it could have been a huge hit as a more indie bedroom pop song. I don’t know. The way that it’s written really transcends more than our genre and our band. And when songs like that are made, they just need one little nudge as far as marketing or radio, just to kind of get it going and get people’s eyes and ears on it.”
On writing the song itself, he added “I think also on a more analytical level, it gets to the chorus really quickly, which is for most people, obviously, the best part of the song. There’s an expression, I forget what artist said it, but it’s don’t bore us get to the chorus. The vocal delivery in the chorus is one of my proudest accomplishments. It’s one of those melodies that feels so natural to me to sing. Every detail in the vocal delivery, whether it’s the quick flip to falsetto on the high notes, or the vibrato at the tail of certain words, it just came out so naturally. There’s something about a really good vocal take that comes out and feels and sounds natural that people can feel more, emotionally. Everything with that song just fell right into place, the right way at the right time.”
You can read our full interview with Noah inside the Rock Sound Awards Issue, available to order right here.
