The members of AJR have teased their upcoming album OK ORCHESTRA as the most “extreme” version of the band, and that’s no more apparent than in the song “My Play.”

The track, which dropped last December, reflects Adam, Ryan and Jack Met‘s experience as children of divorce. Speaking with ABC Audio, Jack admits that he and his brothers/band mates were “scared” to write about such an emotional and heavy topic.

“The first thought was, ‘OK, obviously we have this experience, this is part of our life, and how is AJR gonna write a song about this?'” Jack shares. “Because we have to do it at some point, because we like to be as honest as possible.”

“[It was] probably one of the things we were most scared to write about,” he adds.

In deciding to tackle the subject head on, AJR knew they had to write about it in only a way that they could.

“If we write saying, ‘OK, there is a divorce, and this is what happened,’ that song has been done before,” Jack explains. “We’re not the first people to write about divorce. And I think people can be a little bit desensitized to that. It’s almost seeming, like, ‘OK, it’s just something that happens in a movie.'”

That’s when the idea for the central image of “My Play” came into focus: a child who wrote a play, but has to perform it twice in different houses now that their parents have separated

“Then it became, like, ‘OK, wow…this is an important song to put out. This is gonna make people think,'” Jack says.

OK ORCHESTRA will be released March 26. It also includes the singles “Bang!” and “Way Less Sad.”

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

By Josh Johnson
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