The lyrics for NPC came from a dissatisfaction with my daily monotony. Wondering if my life was going nowhere, and if my life was being wasted just mindlessly consuming rather than creating. I was also thinking a lot at the time about whether reality was actually a simulation, mostly because I have OCD and intrusive thoughts like that are a part of my daily struggle with mental illness.

The song really is just a repeated question: am I really living or am I just waiting to die? Is this all real? Am I just an NPC? I felt like my role as an artist wasn’t to answer this question, but to give the listener a window into what it feels like to grapple with that kind of nihilism, and the emotional turmoil that follows not having an answer.

I tried to capture that struggle by using natural vocals, autotune, and acoustic and electronic instruments at various points in the song to represent the conflict between my internal assertion that I am real and what I do matters, (represented by my natural voice and acoustic instruments); and the intrusive thoughts that meaning is fake, nothing matters, and it’s all a simulation anyway, (represented by auto tuned vocals and electric piano). There is a really cool point in the song where an electric piano and a baby grand are playing the same melody slightly out of sync, which leads into the final chorus of the song with both auto tuned and natural vocals singing different melodies over a distorted electric piano and a huge acoustic horn section, effectively marrying the electronic and acoustic elements. Both outlining the conflict between the two warring ideologies and producing a really cool harmony at the same time.

I may have gone a little overboard with the English major stuff on this one, but I just love how all of those ideas feel together. It’s a great song to listen to stoned staring at the ceiling in your room.

-Kyle McAllister