If there’s one thing Waterparks have become known for, it’s their brutal honesty and no-tolerance policy for toxicity. After premiering the first half of the new single at Reading and Leeds Festival last month, the Houston trio has finally released the highly-anticipated “IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL.” The track is the second single from the band’s new era after releasing their explosive return with “RED GUITAR” in July.
When a song’s first verse opens with “I hate 50 percent of our fans,” it’s a dead giveaway that the band’s about to unapologetically let it rip. Frontman Awsten Knight spends the first minute of “IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL” calling out invasive parasocial behavior in fandom culture with an unmistakable venom in his tone. “God forbid my mom wakes up and reads half the crazy bullshit on her feed” and “Now I’m a bit of a restraining order juggernaut / It cost 25k but the creeps don’t stop” show Knight not holding anything back as he brutally exposes the harmful reality of being in the spotlight.
The second verse of “IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL” puts the business side of being a musician on blast. “You’re a little too niche for the radio / But you’d probably drive TikTok crazy though!” touches upon the tone-deaf marketing strategies forced upon bands by record labels in the modern age. Everything revolves around how many views, clicks and streams a song gets rather than the quality of the art and Waterparks are tired of remaining quiet about this phenomenon. Knight shares,
“A lot of the songs on the next Waterparks album play with big, abstract concepts, and IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL was one of those. The premise is exactly what it sounds like – things I’d get into if I didn’t think anyone would ever hear the song, which in my opinion is the best way to write. It’s how you get yourself to talk about the most personal and uncomfortable things. The lyrics brush through a lot of topics very quickly, all of which could probably be their own songs, but that’s also what makes it exciting.”
The end of the ‘90s hip-hop inspired track is where it gets even more interesting. Knight gears up for verse three, thinking of what to cover next before being cut off after sharing a censored name called him on the phone and threatened him once. The frustrated singer yells about being bleeped out on his own song, before teasing listeners with “Oh we’re fading out, okay good. Track 4” on the outro.
Waterparks will kick off the first of three sold-out small, intimate shows tomorrow night in Pomona, California. The trio will then hit the road for their massive Prowler Tour across North America this November. Tickets and information for these upcoming dates can be found here.
