Behind The Song: Not What You Do by Outrun The Rain

Behind the song: Not what you do by Outrun the rain

So many iconic songs were spawned by a backstory, whether that’s a situation that occurred in the artist’s life or something that personally inspired them whilst writing it. This is also the case when it comes to Outrun the Rain, a rising band that was formed in Monmouth by its three members.

Today I wanted to touch on one of their newer songs, “Not What You Do”. It was released in May of this year and now sits at the third position in the list of their most popular songs on Spotify – definitely for good reason. The song is a fascinating blend of guitar and rhythmic bass, layered with captivating vocals that clearly tell a story.

The band takes lots of inspiration from classic rock artists like Led Zeppelin, as well as modern rock bands such as Royal Blood and Muse – but for this song they decided to take a different approach, and it certainly worked well for them. They minimised the guitars and focused on a vibe that was more pop-leaning, focusing on keyboards and synths while they took inspiration from artists like Tame Impala and Portugal The Man.

In their own words, the song’s lyrics are about how sometimes there’s only one person “in the wrong” in a relationship, as opposed to both sides being at fault like people usually assume. They say it’s something a lot of people can resonate with and I personally agree with that quite a lot, songs about personal experience are always good..

“Not What You Do” was a B-Side to “I See Ghosts”. While recording, some of the band members were away at university and others were still at school, which makes the song’s production all the more impressive considering they had to juggle revision with zoom calls.

It was also the first song they ever played using a click track on stage, and meant they could program songs that they otherwise couldn’t make while live, which is an exciting milestone and only enhances performances since it means they can replicate the sound of their songs while live even more accurately.

Overall, they seem to enjoy playing it live and having heard it live myself as well at one of our summer sessions, I definitely get that impression and it’s an enjoyable experience to listen to them performing it as well – though I’m biased with it being my favourite song of theirs. Let’s hope there will be many more to come!