Songfacts®:

• Kaleo is an Icelandic rock band that formed at Mosfellsbær in 2012. The group consists of frontman JJ Julius Son, drummer David Antonsson, bassist Daniel Kristjansson and guitarist Rubin Pollock.
• Originally released on August 7, 2015, the song gradually gained heat after featuring in various TV shows including the season five finale of Suits, the sixth episode of The Vampire Diaries' eighth season and a trailer for the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. It also played on the FIFA 16 soundtrack, and a television ad for the UK retailer Boots UK. As a result of the ongoing exposure, "Way Down We Go" made its Hot 100 debut in January 2017, more than a year after the track first charted on Hot Rock Songs.
• Julius Son penned the tune around its central riff. He explained to Chorus FM: "I first wrote the riff, and then added the verse and finally the chorus. It's a very bluesy song, especially if you play it acoustically. It probably all started tapping my feet and messing around on the guitar."
• The video was recorded inside the dormant Icelandic volcano Thrihnukagigur in July 2015, tying in nicely with the song title. Julius Son told Altwire:
  
  "We reached out to the people there and they were all for it. It was a bit of a task than I had realized because we had to get everything down there. We did video and audio down there. We had to take all of our equipment down there. There was a very small down there, it takes 10 minutes to get down, 10 minutes to get up. It was a 26 hour day. The Acoustics down there were fantastic though, so we were really happy with the outcome."
• "Way Down We Go" featured in the season 16 episode 22 of NCIS when it soundtracked the end scene where the team is walking into court. Two years later it set the scene for the climatic reveals in the This Is Us season 5 finale.