Vultures

This was the song on Asking Alexandra's 2017 self-titled album, which came together most quickly. It was penned by vocalist Danny Worsnop and guitarist Ben Bruce on the tour bus in around 2015 and Worsnop sang the demo in one take from start to finish. He recalled to Alternative Press: "I think we were out with Avenged Sevenfold, and Ben started getting very guitar-y. If he spends enough time around Syn [Synyster Gates, A7X guitarist], he'll do that. So we were on the bus and we wrote this. He'd just written like the [sings riff] and I started singing a vocal, and like, 'All right, let's get this to the studio.'" However, it was at this point that Worsnop left the band and Ukrainian musician Denis Stoff was recruited to replace him. When Storff departed from Asking Alexandra 18 months later, this song was used by record label boss Ash Avildsen to talk Worsnop into re-joining the band. The singer recalled: "He and I were getting dinner in Los Angeles - I think I was doing some movie thing - but he was like, 'Hey, so 'Vultures' is such a great song. It's a shame it never came out." And I was like, 'Dude, I love that song.' He's like, 'Well, you know the Asking guys are thinking about starting another album. How do you feel about them doing it?' And I was like, 'I don't want anyone else singing that song.' Like that is such a personal song. He was like, 'Well, what if you sing the song on the album?' It was weird, I haven't spoken to these people in three years. He's like, 'Listen, it'll just be like a bonus song, just be you and Ben acoustic; it'll be real nice.' And I was like, 'Listen, you talk to him about that because I can't say yes and sign someone up, who, let's be honest, I don't even know anymore.' Couple days later, Ben showed up at the door, like completely out of the blue. We hang out, and I get a phone call a week later, and it's like, 'Hey, will you do this tour?' And it was instantly time for this song to live."

The song was written at a time when Worsnop and his bandmates felt exhausted and used by their management due to their heavy touring schedule. He explained: "We wrote it when the blindfold finally came off from the industry, when we finally took it off ourselves, and realized how much we'd be f---ed all up. It was ahead of its time because it was about what we were later on. And it's why I left. And we'd been worked into the ground. We'd been told that if we took a break, our career was done. That's what we were told. And we were exhausted; we were broken; I was an addict; I'd lost a baby, and their thing was, "Well, go on tour," suck it up. You can deal with it from the road. So it was that. It was this downward spiral that just continues and continues and continues, and it was just us being bled dry. Because all they see is money. They don't see people behind the paychecks. They just see the paychecks. So if we take a month off, that's a month they're not getting paid; they don't want that. They don't care if in six months we're dead because they'll find someone else to fill that space. And like, we'd literally bought drugs and drinks, chicks and all this different stuff just to keep us moving. It reached a breaking point, and I got out. But it was me leaving that kind of woke everyone up, and, I mean, going into it now, it's a completely different story."

The song was written by Danny Worsnop and Ben Bruce after they'd completed their 2013 album From Death To Destiny. The record was hugely successful, but for the individuals in the band it was the worst time in their career. Ben Bruce explained to Kerrang: "We hated each other, we were all on drugs, we were drinking, and the recording of that album was extremely difficult. I left the studio before even finishing because I didn't wanna be around Danny anymore." Bruce wrote "Vultures" on the guitar, and Worsnop heard it and sang some vocals over it. The guitarist explained the song is about how messed up the music industry is, and the lengths Asking Alexandra were pushed to for people to earn money at the expense of the band. "It lead us down this dark hole, and that was essentially Danny's goodbye to music," he said. "He was gonna quit music forever. It's a sad song; it was a tough one to have written." "Vultures" never got released as Worsnop ended up leaving the band. It was the last thing he ever wrote with Bruce. When Worsnop rejoined Asking Alexandria, the first thing he did was go into the vocal booth and sing "Vultures". He said, 'When I left, I always knew I'd be back at some point because every single day I wasn't in the band, I spent thinking about that song."