*Song Description By Noles*
It was a bold move to put a hip hop song on a rock album, but I really just wanted to tell the truth. People in the music industry always talk about not crossing genres when it comes to artist identity. Staying consistent within your style so the audience isn't confused. And thus obtaining the right kind of audience for a specific genre of music. But in 2017, the times called for me to create a song like "Virgin Lungs".
On July 27, 2017, I played my last show with the 2015-2017 version of Plaid On Flannel. Here's a clip from that night...
youtu.be/d90hZhObF08 Keyboardist Jen Doyon left the band, and I parted ways with the rhythm section. The Get On! EP was released the next month on August 28, 2017. I was taking a break from band work before I added a new rhythm section of younger musicians later in 2017. During that break, I wanted to create a song that was different from the music I would perform in a band.
Before I started playing guitar, I was a big fan of rap and hip hop. I had dozens of mixed CDs and tapes. I even had my own rap name Mr. Swiss. When I started playing guitar in 2002, I fell in love with rock. However, I still continued to listen to the rap I loved from the late 90s and early 00s. The genre's quality deteriorated over the years, but I still wanted to create hip hop beats in the classic style. Being dedicated to my rock and roll craft interfered with that. But in August of 2017, I finally decided to create a hip hop song. I knew I wanted to sample something obscure in the style of Dr. Dre and Kanye West. So upon listening to an old Terry Reid album from 1969, I sampled "Superlungs My Supergirl".
What really prompted me to create "Virgin Lungs" was the awful hip hop music from overachieving artists like Drake. And Donald Trump becoming president of the U.S. It's called "Virgin Lungs" because of the mass shooting in Charlottesville, Virginia at the time, and part of the Terry Reid song title. I made "Virgin Lungs" because I felt I could create better hip hop music than the crop of talentless freaks from the modern hip hop era. And if Donald Trump can become president, than I can create a hip hop song. I finished recording "Virgin Lungs" on September 17, 2017, and I was pleased with how it turned out. If I become Mr. Swiss again, it will be outside of Plaid On Flannel.