The PEN-15 blog: **Leave Home track rundown + influences**

Ahead of the release on ** this Friday ** of our new album, Leave Home, here's a rundown of what went into all of the songs and what influenced us along the way.

As I mentioned previously, due to our combined powers of ADHD, we started writing this record in the downtime around (due to a hilarious technological disaster that resulted in us losing a ton of work...) Suze doing the final (re)mixing of Reckoner.

The first song we wrote was Splash Mountain Suicide , which at least shows we had the intent of getting back to our silly, punky roots! The first half pretty much flowed out and joined up nicely, but then from mixing it up a bit and trying different things it all took a very dark turn.

Either way, we hope there's something in there for everyone and that you'll enjoy what we've put together for your listening pleasure!

1 - WE ARE PEN-15: our now standard big stadium rock opening number. I was inspired by Lemmy always opening shows with, amongst other things, "WE ARE MOTÖRHEAD AND WE PLAY ROCK N ROLL". I paraphrased that and basically wrote the whole thing around Motörhead song and album titles. Throw in some PEN-15 et voila!

2 - THE BITCH THAT WILL NOT DIE: an utterly goofy and comic book shit-kicker. Past that, it comes from my seemingly sheer indomitability to somehow be alive and well and not in the loony bin.

3 - Splash Mountain Suicide: the obligatory Simpsons reference number! Yay!

4 - Gay Gal Supremacy: what it says on the tin.

5 - I Went To Space And All I Got Was This Lousy Vagina: a feminist commentary on certain celebrity space tourists.

6 - I Will Fight You: about how I live to kick the ass of bullies, racists, transphobes, etc

7 - ¡AXOLOTL EPOCHAL!: I just really wanted to write a song in and pay homage my mother tongue and Mexican heritage! Lyrically has El Día de los Muertos themes and musically we wanted to throw in some crazy nu-metal(?) vibes.

8 - Song About Feeling Sad and Lonely in Bb: I wanted us to do a song that musically could have been on an episode of Buffy. Lyrically, it's about how no-one can even slightly comprehend how so utterly alone your life feels.

9 - Unto The Void: personifying my BPD as a dark goddess who I submit my life and existence to the whims of. Musically it turned into some gothy post-punk epic. Suze had an absolute blast with it.

10 - The Monster I Created to Protect The Child Inside is Sometimes Hard to Manage: the title is paraphrased from a Marc Maron thing. Lyrically it's about how my self-defence mechanisms developed as a result of trauma has seemingly made me a romantically unlovable monster. Musically, we wanted something really haunting and unsettling but also strangely beautiful. Again, Suze loved flexing her non-guitar muscles with this one.

11 - Pretty Like a Hand Grenade: about someone trying to sexually assault me earlier this year.

12 - I Will Die: about losing all sense of self, worth, hope, and gladly accepting death.

13 - Singularity: about your life slowly crushing your very existence into nothingness.

Leave Home was brought to you via us vibing on lots of:

Offspring - Smash