@toxxic.masculinity: This song originally appeared on our second record and was also the B-side to the Stay in Love cassette single—for those of you under 40, a cassette was basically a playlist that could be destroyed by a pencil. Reworking it for the new album and turning it into a country track was an absolute pain in the ass. I’d played the original version for so long that every attempt sounded less like outlaw country and more like the old song wearing cowboy boots it bought ten minutes earlier. I was honestly ready to give up on it. Then I finally realized the problem wasn’t the guitars, the vocals or the arrangement. It was the drum beat. I kept trying to force the same ’90s groove into a song that had clearly moved on with its life. So I had the AI replace it with a straight, driving beat—and suddenly the entire thing came alive. It’s an angry song, and I intentionally produced it that way. But what started as a throwaway B-side has somehow become one of my top five songs on the new album. All because I changed the drum beat. Thirty years of songwriting experience, and apparently the answer was still: “Have you tried turning the drums off and back on again?” #toxxicmasculinity #candisdirtysecret #cdsband #outlawcountry