Wizz

Album: Crawler (2021)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • For 15 years, Idles frontman Joe Talbot struggled with substance abuse until he eventually sorted his life out. This track finds the singer detailing the contents of texts sent to him by his drug dealer in his addiction days. "I'm fascinated by the dichotomy of where I was then," he told Mojo magazine. "I was a piece of s--t. I was a really horrible person to myself and other people. I was just an addict and just did what addicts do, which is lie and let people down a lot."
  • Musically, this 30-second track is inspired by the extreme metal micro-genre powerviolence, an extremely dissonant and fast type of hardcore punk. Originating in the late 1980s/early 1990s, powerviolence is closely related to thrashcore and grindcore, with the addition of wildly fluctuating song tempos.

    Idles were introduced to the genre by their sound engineer Chris Fullard, who also works with powerviolence acts Boris and SunnO. "There's this one Japanese band and one of the songs is just them bulldozing a venue," Talbot told Mojo magazine admiringly.
  • Idles recorded "Wizz" for Crawler, which tells Talbot's story of his long fight with alcoholism and drug abuse and how he came through the other side. The album delves into the worst years of the singer's life, but also the best. "If you don't like hearing tales of struggle then you won't like it," he told Mojo. "But it makes me feel happy because I'm here. I'm alive."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Graduation Songs

Graduation SongsFact or Fiction

Have you got the smarts to know which of these graduation song stories are real?

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou HarrisSongwriter Interviews

She thinks of herself as a "song interpreter," but back in the '80s another country star convinced Emmylou to take a crack at songwriting.

Actors With Hit Songs

Actors With Hit SongsMusic Quiz

Many actors have attempted music, but only a few have managed a hit. Do you know which of these thespians charted?

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo Lyric

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo LyricMusic Quiz

In this quiz, spot the artist who put Romeo into a song lyric.

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent

Ben Kowalewicz of Billy TalentSongwriter Interviews

The frontman for one of Canada's most well-known punk rock bands talks about his Eddie Vedder encounter, Billy Talent's new album, and the importance of rock and roll.

Al Kooper

Al KooperSongwriter Interviews

Kooper produced Lynyrd Skynyrd, played with Dylan and the Stones, and formed BS&T.