We’re Bel-Ami, Redddaz, Misha Savage, and Will Sacks and we make up Herbivores!
Misha and Will had the idea to call Bel-Ami to sing over a track they had produced in 2017. Within hours, Bel-Ami had the entire song written and ready to record. Red has been working with Misha and The Saturators for about four years, but started writing with us and it just felt right.
From the moment we decided to write as a formal team, songs have exploded out of our collaboration. These six songs that make up our Herbivores EP were the lighter, summer-sounding songs that we thought the world needed right about now. They’ll be followed by another six released this fall on our follow-up EP, Nightshades.
“Kinda Like A Crush”
It’s a tale as old as time. Will had just bought a new synthesizer. Misha fell in love with it. Inspired by a dancer he’d met abroad, he plunked out the instrumental for “Kinda Like a Crush”.
Misha showed it to Amir during a writing session before Amir was heading out of town to visit family. From the time he left Brooklyn to getting to Hudson Yards, Crush was written in its entirety.
The song already had the title “CRUSH” on the instrumental which inspired Amir to write this track overflowing with the energy of a first encounter. This track is really the perfect appetizer, because, in a way, it feels like Bel-Ami is talking directly to the listener.
“90 Degree Bae”
Originally conceived at Y?’s Space Station studio in Queens, Will overheard the instrumental as Misha was fiddling with it one day and begged to lay down a bass for it.
After a writing session between Misha and Red, Misha played what became “90 Degree Bae”, and within 20 minutes, the three of us had written the entire song. Y? Later returned to Brooklyn to cut his verse complete a love song for New Yorkers in the 9.
“Ghosts”
This track we all wrote in the room together. We had the instrumental, and there was just something so warm yet so distant about the track. That spurred Red to write the “You’re so exclusive / but your so elusive” hook, and from there the whole song just seemed to fall in place.
“6AM”
Misha’s obsession with late 70s rare groove records led to Will asking a pivotal question: “There’s all these disco and funk tracks are about things that go bump in the night, but why none praising the morning?”
Armed with Misha’s synthesizer and a bottle of tequila, we set to work about writing about rising and shining… in the best possible way.
“Like U”
This one was written remotely pre-COVID. The vocals in the track were Bel-Ami’s demo vocals that we all liked so much that we decided to keep them. This track expresses regret in maybe the sweetest way, sounding on the surface like a love song, but really discussing what it’s like to run into a former flame and sort of imagine everything about their world since you left it.
“Running In Place”
Will wrote this instrumental in the fall of 2019. After nailing down the chorus lyrics with Misha, this one sat as an instrumental for weeks, falling in and out of love with the lyrics.
Will went to Brazil to finish up his NYU degree, and on returning home to his life in New York, his shitty accountant job, and what felt like a dead-end life, lyrics began to stream out, specifically the pre-chorus:
“You can take my voice but I’ll never stop preaching / You can break my arms but I’ll never stop reaching / You can cut the cord but I’ll just keep breathing / Can’t kill the hope because I’ll never stop believing”.
The song sat unfinished for a few weeks before Will decided to ask Bel-Ami to help him finish it. Bel-Ami’s lyrics and his performance made this song what it became. It’s about perseverance, but above all else it’s about knowing that you won’t be treading water forever.
Listen to our Herbivores EP below!
