“Sick Children” the third single to be released from Like a Motorcycle’s upcoming album presumes two things. First, that there is a God. Second, that he is personally responsible for all the nitty-gritty details of the universe, right down to every papercut and stubbed toe. Taking a heavier approach than their usual, the band turns to English actor and writer when it comes time to ask who will be held accountable in the department of needless suffering.
“‘Sick Children’ is an open letter to whatever sadistic deity would create and preside over a world with so much senseless suffering,” says Like a Motorcycle’s guitarist and lyricist KT Lamond.
The band says that Stephen Fry summed it up the gist of the song during a 2015 interview with Gay Byrne on the RTÉ One program The Meaning Of Life. During the interview, Fry was asked what he would do if he were to find himself confronted by God at the pearly gates of Heaven, to which he responded by asking: “Bone Cancer in Children? What’s that about? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s utterly evil.”
For his comments, Fry was subjected to a blasphemy probe. The Irish police later dropped the case as “there was no injured party,” which is probably the most bureaucratic argument for atheism ever conceived.
Working with veteran producer Howard Redekopp (Tegan and Sara, Mother Mother) in Vancouver, Like a Motorcycle describes their upcoming 13-track album as an exploration of the “more egregious aspects of being a rock band, and humans at large – witnessing your idols abuse their positions of power, financial uncertainty, struggling with mental health/trauma, familial separation, and heartbreak… all while being dead broke.”
Dead Broke is scheduled for release on October 30, 2020 via Known Accomplice. You can pre-order the album here.