THE RETICENT release behind the scenes video: “The Story of Funeral for a Firefly”

On The Eve Of A Goodbye is an autobiographical concept album. All of the tracks serve to detail the day before, day of, and day after the suicide of THE RETICENT’s mastermind Chris Hathcock’s childhood friend, Eve.  The songs chronicle his concern for her, her deterioration into self-hatred, and culminates with the tragic act and its aftermath.  Not only a stylistic contrast to previous releases, this album is also intensely more personal than past Reticent albums (which were already emotional purges).  The album is intended to be heard as a single entity rather than a collection of tracks.

The album was recorded in order in the span of a few days in the summer of 2015 (with a touch up in November 2015). Producer/Engineer Jamie King (known for previous work with BTBAM, The Wretched, Scale The Summit, etc.) chose to allow Hathcock to do as he needed in the studio as he felt it added greatly to the emotion of the record. In fact, on the song “Funeral for a Firefly” when trying to record the lead vocal part, Hathcock made it only two lines in before sobbing hysterically as memories and the trauma he had held back for a decade came flooding to the forefront. After calming to the point that he could catch his breath, Hathcock told Jamie King that he felt unable to record the song. Jamie encouraged him to try just one more time and if it didn’t work, they’d drop it. Hathcock went back into the booth and made it through the entire song with constant tears streaming down his face and his voice cracking and quivering as he went through. Jamie was so affected by the performance he said he wanted to keep the raw performance – as in no edits to the sound so every sniffle and breath could be heard putting the listener in the booth with the despairing singer.

Credits:

All music, lyrics, and narration written by Chris Hathcock
All instruments and vocals performed by Chris Hathcock
except the following:
Narration by Carl Hathcock, Juston Green, and Amanda Caines
Female vocals by Amanda Caines
French Horn by Dr. Nicholas Kenney
Trombone and Trumpet by Matthew Parunak
Tenor Saxophone by Andrew Lovett

Produced by Jamie King
Mixed, Mastered, and Engineered by Jamie King at The Basement Studios

Executive Producer: Chris Hathcock

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