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Punk supergroup Pressure Set have released the video for their new single "Panic Show," a collaboration featuring Mike Wiebe of Riverboat Gamblers and Drakulas, ahead of the band's upcoming debut LP, out October 2 on Dr. Strange Records.
"Panic Show" grew out of two songwriters independently working from the same idea. Daryl Wilson had a completed track waiting when Wiebe came on board and wrote his own — the two later realized they'd landed on nearly identical themes without ever discussing it.
"This song was really fun to collaborate on," Wilson says. "A chance to sing with Mike, one of the best frontmen in music and my friend, was a dream. It was funny how it worked out because I had a whole song completed for the music, and Mike came around and did a whole song for the music as well. Turns out we had similar thinking behind the theme of the song. I am working from the angle of the person who is always in a state of panic, which never solves anything, it just induces more panic. We have a society that continues to feed that beast, and you find people in this steady state of dread all the time. We are a medicated society, and no one is getting any better."
For Wiebe, the writing process doubled as documentation of a difficult period. "Writing these lyrics for me was a real 'write what you know' situation," he says. "I was in the middle of a mental health crisis. My medicine that worked really pretty well for the better part of 30 years just suddenly stopped working. I was in a pretty deep, couple-year-long spiral. Pretty much the only thing on my mind was making it through the day. So getting a song that already had the title 'Panic Show' was pure synchronicity. Kinda eerie, really. So I just stuck in most of what I was dealing with, just hoping some doctor or nurse or psychologist could fix me. My source was mental health, but lyrically I kinda added in a lot of stuff about general sickness."
"Feeling sick and being desperate for something to make you feel better, I think it's a pretty universal feeling when you don't know what's wrong with you yet or if you are going to get better anytime soon," he continues. "Thankfully I've gotten some relief through meds and therapy since the time I laid these vocals down. It's been kinda weird listening to it now and remembering how bad off I was. This is one of the few creative documents I have from this time period. Hopefully I won't ever get back there again."












