Everything is not always what it seems. Outside of the realm of politics, nowhere does this ring truer than the entertainment business. Like Chuck D said, “Don’t believe the hype.”

In this exclusive Track Breakdown we talk to MURS, Wrekonize and Bernz to get their perspective on one of the amazing bonus tracks available on the iTunes Deluxe Edition of ¡MURSDAY!: “Fools Gold”. Being as they are indie veterans finding success in the crazy world of the music business, they’re no stranger to industry’s truths and fictions.

It’s something that everybody wants to be a part of, but do you know what you’re in for?

Let MURS and ¡MAYDAY! school you below.

WHAT’S THIS SONG ABOUT?

WREKONIZE: “Fools Gold” is like the white rabbit almost or something. We’ve been chasing fools gold down the rabbit hole for awhile.

BERNZ: It’s about the music industry and how it affects our friends and how it affects people.

WREKONIZE: It’s just a song that started off by not being tricked into some of the things that look shiny from far away, especially with how the music industry has a tendency to do that. Everything looks more lavish than it really is then you realize you got duped.

BERNZ: People think they’re chasing one thing when in fact it’s a whole other thing. That’s kind of our ode to that. It’s like the music business in a nutshell is fools gold. You start out thinking it’s about fame and shit but in the end just being on stage and the journey it takes to make music is becoming what the real gold of the whole thing is.

WREKONIZE: The first few years of my career I definitely had a a bunch of records where I was like “Oh this is a smash, this is going to radio. I don’t even know what it takes but this is going to radio.” We’ve done songs before where I’m like “Oh this is the hit.” Or 19 doing the MTV battle and like “Oh, this is it. I’m blowing up now.” There’s definitely been a few moments along the way that have happened like that. I think I’m pretty good now at that point, I’ve just been doing it so long that I don’t feel that way too much anymore. It takes a lot to get me hype but it took practice.

BERNZ: Yo I bought into the fantasy like everybody else. 100% I thought I was gonna be the biggest thing in the world, and maybe we still will be, but that’s not what’s important. That’s not what matters to me as a musician or somebody that makes this a career. I count my wins by each artistic endeavor, that’s how I count my career wins. I don’t’ really do that anymore by how famous I am or whatever, those things are all relative.

MAKING THE RECORD

WREKONIZE: The song goes back before Take Me To Your Leader. It’s been around for awhile. It’s come up a few times in terms of it’s a great beat and we’ve always loved the hook. For some reason we just couldn’t lock down verses that we thought complemented it.

MURS: Those guys are very meticulous, if the song’s not right, they’re not going to put it out.

WREKONIZE: I know with some other artists, especially Tech, they’ll record for that album and everything they throw down goes towards that album. They know exactly how to do it and it gets laid down but we kind of throw a lot more at the wall. Sometimes songs just don’t time right or they don’t match up with the project or whatever and we have no problem sitting on them. I feel if the song is timeless then you don’t really have to rush to get it out.

MURS: They were like, “Here, this is a spare track we could try to do something.” They had rapped to it so many times that they were like, “You’re going to have to come up with something amazing in order for us to like it because we’ve rapped to this song a million ways and it hasn’t been good enough.”

WREKONIZE: Before the song we had separate verses. We were doing 16s. I think the energy was too broken up maybe and separated and compartmentalized so it didn’t really move as much as we wanted it to. It was dragging the record down where as now we switched it up and tried the format we were doing and that seems to carry the record way better.

MURS: We just kind of approached it like if you can’t climb that mountain by yourself, we climb it together. We did our Beastie Boys, back and forth thing, and it worked.

BERNZ: We didn’t really have any sort of rhyme or reason to it dude, it was just like hey you wanna go? You wanna go? I think you haven’t gone. I haven’t heard enough of you. We kept it really open and lighthearted and fun. I think it comes through in the track.

MURS: I wanted to approach it from a lighthearted manner because the hook is so serious. We could have done another “Here” where we’re talking about people trying to be something they’re not and your dreams being bigger than you are, but the hook covers all of that to me.

WREKONIZE: We needed an outside force to come in and stir the pot a little bit. MURS’s vibe is so cool and he’s such a cool dude that we got along so well. There was no pleasantries. We didn’t have to go through small talk. It just clicked. Once you’re cool with someone and you feel comfortable with them then creating with them is a breeze, you know?

FOOLS GOLD FINALLY SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY

WREK: It’s a joint that we’ve had in the pocket for a long time that we’ve always felt was a smash, especially Plex. Plex is a huge proponent of that song.

MURS: That’s an old ¡MAYDAY! song with an amazing beat and hook, I think Plex did it – shout out to Plex Luthor, I didn’t shout him out on the end of the album and I felt bad… He’s OG ¡MAYDAY! royalty, you know?

WREKONIZE: I’m just glad people are going to hear it finally.

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER THE DELUXE EDITION OF

¡MAYDAY! x MURS – ¡MURSDAY! ON iTunes