When I was in college, I wrote quite a bit of poetry. Unfortunately, I could never manage to turn one into a song. That type of musicality eludes me. If someone could play a tune, maybe I could add words.

So I’m always curious about different songwriting styles.

Hold Fast Hope is a band that you should definitely know. They told me all about their secrets to songwriting. Since I can’t keep a secret, I’m sharing their thoughts with you.

What does songwriting mean to you?

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Songwriting for us is really a cathartic process, it gives us a release from the world around us albeit if only for 1 to 2 nights a week. Being able to plug in and play after struggling through the day to day of work and all brings us together in a place where we can let out our frustrations and just feel safe to be ourselves. As of recently, it feels our songwriting has taken a leap into a new direction that just feels more “us”. We’re constantly showing each other new bands and artists and gathering new influences that have not only affected our style musically but it gives us insight into the thought processes we each have when writing music.

There’s a lot of give and take in our process between each other. As much as one of us may love a certain song or something we’re working on, it doesn’t always make the final cut. It’s often a process of elimination, and at the end of it, we write new songs in abundance and it comes down to taking the best of all of it to put forward in a release.

Hold Fast Hope on bandcamp