lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: 12

2017-06: video premiere & web-exclusive interview, music and musicians magazine:

how did the idea of "12" come to you?

[dom kelly] "12" started musically. brendan and i were tracking a different song when he started playing that main riff. i stopped what we were doing and told him we needed to write something with that. he and i sat down, wrote the music together, and the melody just came to me as we worked with the chord progression. i went home that night and wrote the lyrics, and the next day we tracked it. it's a song about addiction, recovery and remembering there is a solution when you sometimes forget. i've been in recovery for seven years, and it's the most important thing in my life-so it's only natural i would write about it. the lyrics actually came to me while i was taking some time to meditate at home. that happens to me a lot. i knew the song was deeply personal and really special. when i listened back after we did the initial tracking, it became clear that emily saliers had to sing on it. i sent her a rough bounce of the track and she wrote back really quickly telling me she loved the song-and wanted to sing on it.