The Pretty Reckless - 25

The Pretty Reckless - 25 [Unplugged]

From the upcoming album 'Death By Rock And Roll' | Available February 12, 2021: found.ee/dbrr

The Pretty Reckless have announced a new studio album called Death by Rock and Roll, which is set to be released on February 12 via Fearless Records. The band have also released a new acoustic version of their song “25” which is set to be included on their upcoming album. The track was originally released last month.

This new version of “25” is completely stripped down, featuring only an acoustic piano and frontwoman Taylor Momsen’s voice as opposed to the original’s lush instrumentation and electric guitars. The piano is able to perfectly recreate the song’s cryptic melody, while Momsen gives a passionate vocal performance, clearly showing off the song’s rock element.



While the first single "Death By Rock and Roll" showcased the band's signature hard rock persona, "25" adds a new flavor to their song catalog. Singer Taylor Momsen delivers airy vocals over a marching snare throughout the verses, which lead to a grandiose chorus. The lyrical theme is reminiscent of their Who You Selling For track "The Walls Are Closing In / Hangman," but we aren't exactly sure what story is being told this time around.

The album’s title-track was released in May, which swiftly followed The Pretty Reckless’ announcement that they had signed to Fearless Records. The band debuted a cover of Soundgarden’s “Loud Love,” which was originally featured on the 1989 studio album Louder Than Love, last month. This track was included on Sirius XM’s Octane.

We're premiering the video for "25." What's the story behind the song?

"25 "is one of the first songs we recorded, I think it was the first song we recorded for the album. I wrote that song when I was 25, [and] we recorded it right after I turned 25. It's very autobiographical, in a lot of ways. I thought it would be an interesting idea to figure out a way to go through all the years of my life and somehow calculate that and have it end with 25. But the inspiration was really drawn from me just reflecting on my life up until that point, writing this autobiographical song from a place of despair. When I finished writing "25," it was a moment where I noticed the shift in my writing. I took a bit of a turn, and I think that I got better.



On the record, it's kind of the first musical shift. If you listen to the album from front-to-back, it starts very heavy and very dark and bleak, and about halfway through the album, it takes a musical shift. There is hope and there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that's all very intentional with the tracklisting. "25" is kind of the first indication that there is hope. It was certainly a growing point for me as a songwriter, where I took a step forward.

Out of curiosity, was being a part of the "27 Club" of musicians a fear of yours, and did you reference it in the song?

Not in that song in particular, and I wouldn't say that it was a fear of mine. Obviously, there is some lore, and rightfully so, due to the history of musicians that have not had the best luck around that age. I wouldn't say that that was necessarily something that was in the forefront of my mind, but I was certainly in a very low spot in my life, and I wasn't entirely sure where my life was going to go, or if it would continue to go...Twenty-five is a very powerful age where you're in a very transitory state, I think, for anyone. We had experienced so much loss, and I was down and in this hole of darkness as a person after everything we've been through. Twenty-five was the number I was focused on, because I was like, "I made it. I made it to 25." And I wasn't sure I was going to make it to 25. Like, "I'm 25 and I'm still alive." I'm still here, I'm still doing this. Life throws you curveballs. I feel like I'm in a much better place than I was.



Were you struggling with your mental health at the time?

Absolutely. We took quite a few hits [with] the loss of Chris Cornell; we were opening for Soundgarden on that last tour. It was the highest of highs for me. The Beatles and Soundgarden are my favorite bands in the world, so to be opening for them, I couldn't express that into words how elated I was and honored I was to be on that tour and then to have it end so tragically. We were there in Detroit that night [before he passed]. I talked to Chris and I hugged him goodbye; it was the last show of the tour, and to wake up to the news the next morning was just so unbelievably shocking and crushing. As it was for millions of people around the world and the music community, it was just a massive loss. I didn't exactly know how to process that. It stunned me in a way that I was not prepared for.

So, I was not in a great place to be public. We were in the middle of a tour, of a record cycle, at that time, and I stepped out and canceled everything and went home because I needed time to process what had happened. And as soon as I started to get back on my feet again and wrap my head around it, I was talking to Kato [Khandwala], our producer and my best friend, and going "Let's move forward, let's make something new, let's start working on the next album." And as soon as we started talking about getting plans in motion, I got the phone call that Kato had passed in a motorcycle accident, and that was just the nail in the coffin for me, for lack of a better term. I sunk down into this very dark hole of depression and substance abuse and everything that comes with that. I kind of gave up as a person. I went, "I don't see light at the end of this tunnel, I don't see hope, I don't see the point."

What helped you get out of that depression?

The thing that pulled me out of all that was, as cliché as it sounds, was music: It was rock 'n' roll. It was the thing that really saved my life. I started by just listening to albums that have always given me solace. I went back to the beginning: I started listening to the Beatles from front-to-back. Record after record after record of all the artists that I've grown up loving and listening to and worshiping, and that eventually kind of started to bring a spark back to my eye, which led to me picking up a guitar and led to me writing this album.

How did the loss you experienced translate into your new album?

It's very much a rebirth for this band. It feels like the first record in so many ways of just that pure, raw inspiration that you can't control, and in the sense that we had to learn to do everything from the beginning again. We had to completely start from scratch because it was the first album we've ever made without Kato. So it was a lot of learning, a lot of growing, a lot of pain, a lot of struggle, but I think at the end of it, we really did create something extraordinarily special that I'm so proud of.

I'm so sorry for your losses. Did your personal struggles account for the five-year gap between albums?

Certainly. That was a huge part of it. But also, it takes a long time to write songs, and I work very hard on all of our albums. It's easy to write songs. It's not easy to write really great songs, and I pride myself on trying to write really great songs. Every time we make an album, the next album has to be better than the last album and so on and so forth. You have to just kind of wait for something to strike you. And life kind of threw me a whole bunch of curveballs that I couldn't deny, so I think the inspiration was just pouring out of me for this album, whether I wanted it or not.

Tell me about the concept behind the video for "25." Did you film it during the pandemic?

It was filmed in COVID, which was a bit terrifying since I have not left the [house]. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, to say the least. I think it stems from being a singer and touring the world and just being so afraid of getting sick. But for the videos, it was kind of crunch time. It's very important to me to have visual representations of these songs that are coming out into the world. We had to bite the bullet, close our eyes and jump, and go, "Okay, we're going to New York City." I've lived in New York City for over 10 years, and I've been in Maine during quarantine, but I miss New York like mad. And so it was like, "Okay, here we go. We're jumping, we're going. We're filming three videos back to back." "25" was the first one. We were shooting with Jon J again, who did the "Fucked Up World" video and "Heaven Knows," so it was great to work with him again.

We took literally all the safety protocols you could possibly take. I had to force all of those fears out of my head and shift modes. As far as the video treatment, like the song, I wanted to tell a story in an honest way. I think that the video is a glamorous depiction of despair in one way, with a lot of raw grit kind of thrown in. I wanted to represent glamour, but I also wanted to represent the passion that the song is trying to convey, of this despair and hope. Stephen King has always been a huge inspiration to me as a writer, but especially visually. I'm a huge fan of his. It's why I have a house in Maine. "25" really came from a place of a glamorous depiction of despair and showing a jazz singer telling her story to a ghostly and absent audience, a woman at a bar telling her story to a ghostly bartender, a woman on a rooftop waiting for her lover, which in this case, my lover is New York City.