Almost left on the cutting room floor, Gouge Away vocalist Christina Michelle comments on the single: “I completely missed the conversation where everyone decided to scrap this song. The guys all felt it was the most unfinished compared to our other demos but I heard a fun and short banger. I had a ton of fun writing the lyrics at home, imagining different voices trading off. Our friends Haley Butters, Meghan O’Neil and Jasmine Watson came to the studio to lend their voices super last minute and they really helped make this song come to life. Now we love that this song made it onto the record.”

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Gouge Away vocalist Christina Michelle comments on the track: “I wrote the lyrics to this song at a time when I was at absolute rock bottom and felt like there were no options left. I realized that I had subconsciously been seeking help by acting recklessly. When I realized behaving this way was hurting people who loved me, it made me recognize that I had to change, if not for myself, then for them.”

She continues, “The music for this song came to life while the guys were waiting for soundcheck to start in Dallas, TX. Years later, this song has gone through the most changes out of any of them but the phone recordings and demos were always referred to as ‘Dallas.’ So being nostalgic like we are, we kept the song title the same.”

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Everything came to a halt in 2020 when a full year of plans were canceled in an instant. With the rug pulled out from under them, their backs against the wall, and no way to change the situation they were in, the members of Gouge Away had no choice but to go on a hiatus. They moved to different parts of the country and focused on their personal lives, accepting that those songs were never going to see the light of day. However, the songs lived as files waiting to be rediscovered and every once in a while, they’d get the urge to listen to them again.

On New Year’s Eve just before 2022, Gouge Away decided to reconnect and finish writing Deep Sage with Portland, OR becoming their new writing location. While everyone was in town for a writing session, Militarie Gun had a show down the street at Mano Oculta and invited Gouge Away to play a couple of songs during their set as a surprise. It was the first show Gouge Away had played in three years. Energized by the reaction, the band continued writing. They had an overabundance of material, slashing songs from the final tracklist left and right. They not only elaborated on the urgent and abrasive qualities they were known for but broadened their melodic traits, too.

Gouge Away entered Atomic Garden East in March 2023 with Jack Shirley at the helm, and recorded Deep Sage completely analog and almost entirely live. The band performed together in a live room while vocalist Christina Michelle was in an isolation booth, her vocals projected from a monitor so the band could hear her. The goal of recording live was to sound like five friends playing in a room together, just like where they started in Florida. Unpolished and far from being over-produced, this is what the heart of Gouge Away has always been.

Today, the album opener ‘Stuck in a Dream’ arrives alongside a punchy performance video. Christina comments, “Recording live and to tape creates an intense environment where we have no choice but to feed off each other’s energy. We have to get it right in one take and if anyone messes up we all have to start over, so no one wants to be that guy. It adds an element of risk and excitement. We don’t want to sound beautifully polished or perfect anyway. We want to sound like the five of us being human, and no one is better than Jack Shirley when it comes to capturing what it feels like in the room.”

Deep Sage:

1. Stuck in a Dream
2. Maybe Blue
3. Idealized
4. Deep Sage
5. A Welcome Change
6. Overwatering
7. No Release
8. The Sharpening
9. Spaced out
10. Newtau
11. Dallas

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