Ever wonder how AJR made their hit song “Bang!”? Wonder no longer, because Ryan Met has broken down their creative process in an all-new TikTok.
The video -- simply titled "How we made 'Bang!'" -- starts with Ryan opening up the song's sound file and showing all the elements that went into it.
Ryan revealed the song was first orchestrated through a "very simple piano line" that are the opening notes of the hit. "And then we added some very modern snaps," he continues, before revealing they were later replaced by "big 808 [drums] and big snares."
Ryan then dissected the song's "horn section," explaining, "I find when you're working with horns, it really helps to do both MIDI synthesized horns and real horns. They kind of layer in an interesting way."
"The fake horns add a lot of body, but the real horns add a lot of de-tuneness that feel very human," he continued and showed how they were layered into the song's final mixdown.
As for the voice that says "here we go" and "metronome" in "Bang!", Ryan revealed they "wanted a unique voice to announce the chorus," so they hired the same person who voices the "stand clear of the closing doors" announcement on the New York city subway system -- Charlie Pellett.
"And it came out like this," Ryan said as it played.
“Bang!,” released in 2020, is certified double Platinum by the RIAA and won the Billboard Music Award for Top Rock Song after peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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