"Red Line" is the fourth track from DEC3's self-titled debut album. The band was forced to release the song as the first single when their guitarist, Jon Haber, was asked to be interviewed on Fox News. They created a video for the song just for that occasion.
The song was inspired by the Syrian Civil War. DEC3's primary songwriter, Jon Haber, revealed in our interview with him why he chose that controversial topic. "When I wrote this song, recorded it, and it was mixed, no one was paying attention to the situation over there," he said. "I put myself in the shoes of a civilian living there who's going through all this craziness."
The lyrics mention real events that happened during the Syrian Uprising, such as chemical weapons like gas being used to kill innocent children by the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. Jon Haber watched the news day-to-day to help write the words for the tune, "There's a lot of material out there in order to write these lyrics. Just by watching and following the news, I was able to weave a story out of what I was seeing."
The song was written one year before the United States invaded Syria in September of 2014. The title was taken from a quotation from the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the middle and ending of the song features sound bites from him. The civilian telling the story is upset and frustrated with Obama because he didn't do anything to help at the time even though he said he would.
"We said we were going to do something and we didn't do anything. The one last hope that someone had over there at that time was that somebody was going to come and help get them out of this dictator's grip," explained Haber.
Jon Haber wrote the guitar riff for the chorus of the song in 2010 and then wrote the rest of it about three years later over the course of one weekend.
The only song Jon Haber did not play bass on the album was "Red Line." Zach Cooper from the progressive rock band, Coheed and Cambria, contributed bass on the song. DEC3's drummer, Mike Kalajian, used to be in a group with Cooper so they enlisted his help when he was in town.
The last thing added to the song was the piano part that was played by Shane Keister from Five for Fighting, who is known for piano-based rock. Haber described his intention for that section, saying, "It's like a Bach fugue, which I wanted specifically something in that style juxtaposed against the rest of the music."
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