Valencia Return With Unreleased Song ‘Weight of the World’

Former scene rockers Valencia have returned to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their Dancing With a Ghost.

We've teamed with the band to drop a song that was originally from the Dancing era, but was recorded this year during quarantine. Titled "Weight of the World," the song was produced by the band themselves.

"'Weight of the World' is a song that has been floating around for many years in the Valencia camp, but was never fully realized until now," explain the band. "While looking back at the song we noticed the lyrics are more relevant than ever. The line, 'At your lowest point you start to see yourself and can begin to grow,' really defines the current state we're living in."

"The world may seem awful but the opposite way to look at that is how amazing it is that society has seemingly hit rock bottom and can finally see its flaws," they continue. "At the bottom, we have become painfully aware of the need to grow and evolve and the only way out is up. We need to be better for each other's sake, let alone ourselves and the weight of the world.”

Valencia will release a 10-year anniversary edition of Dancing With a Ghost tomorrow, Oct. 23 via I Surrender Records. It'll include numerous demos and B-sides from that era of the band, extending the tracklist to 27 songs, from its original 11.

Additionally, I Surrender is releasing a Weight of the World 7-inch in celebration of the 15-year anniversary for Valencia's This Could Be a Possibility. The release will feature both “Weight of the World” and an acoustic version of “The Space Between.” Pre-orders are on sale now.

We spoke with the band about "Weight of the World," what the scene was like 10 years ago and what the future looks like for Valencia. Listen to the song and check out the interview below.

You guys went on hiatus in 2011. What have you been up to outside of Valencia over the last nine years?

We've all been doing various different things. Mostly creative. I've been directing music videos and made a movie called Spell that you should watch. Shane has been playing lots of music. Dan is a dad and has been playing drums for Panic! at the Disco for many years now. George counts goldfish and soup cans for a living and has also bore an offspring. Trevor (also a dad) also plays tons of music and you should check out his bands: The End of America and Punchline! That's the basic gist of it, but if you're asking how many slices of pizzas we've eaten... it's gotta be in the thousands, collectively.

You’ve played sporadic shows and released a handful of songs over in recent years. Is there any chance the band will ever be full time again? Or even a tour here and there after the pandemic?

I think a tour here and there is possible. We've been wanting to hit the west coast but just haven't been able to in the last 10 years, so maybe that? We're all sort of doing our own thing and a full time Valencia isn't very likely. However, we all love playing and making music together so hopefully there's lots more to come post-pandemic.

Talk about Dancing With a Ghost. What do you remember about the scene 10 years ago? What was it like for you guys on that album cycle?

I think this album came out at a strange time. There was a huge shift going on, sort of a changing of the guards. The scene was transitioning from the sort of pop punk-y bands that we started with and splitting off and moving towards some of the more darker sounding bands and then also the more poppy bands. We didn't totally fit in either of those camps. I think we made our best overall album with this one, but it wasn't quite given the shot because the scene around us was changing. Not that I'm blaming anything or anyone, it's just what was going on. These things always happen and only a few bands can stand those changes and live on their own island, we just weren't that band.

What do you remember about the writing process for “Weight of the World?”

This is a song that has made its way, musically through many eras of the band. Probably dating back to our original drummer Max. However, the most recent version of the song is the first time it's seen a final fully formed version. We really tried to do something different on this one; a little darker, a little less leaning on the old production styles we usually fall into. As far as writing it, we sort of had a skeleton of lyrics lying around, but it wasn't until we revisited it mid-pandemic, in a world rife with racial injustices and inequalities did it finally click. We were like 'Oh, I get it!' Obviously we wrote the words, but it just made even more sense now than ever. 'At your lowest point you start to see yourself and can begin to grow, is the line that really solidified it. We were like, 'Well, I hope that's what's happening in America. I hope we can see we've hit rock bottom and finally learn to listen to each other and build back up and grow.'

Can we expect more new music from Valencia?

I think every time we release something we say, 'That's probably it, right?' And then we're back. So we probably aren't the most trustworthy narrators no matter what we tell you. So I'll stick with a safe, 'Probably?'

25 Scene Albums Turning 10 In 2020