Singled Out: Led By Vultures' Waves

08-19-2026

Brian Tichey's new band Led By Vultures recently released their latest single and video "Waves" from their forthcoming debut album (Out August 28th). To celebrate we asked Brian to tell us about the new track that he wrote with music icon Derek Sherinian. Here is the story:

Waves is an old song, and I'm very happy it found its way on to the Led By Vultures record. I was messing around with an acoustic guitar tuned to open C (CGCGCE) trying to get my Jimmy Page on, and came up with this chord progression. It was very satisfying as I didn't have to search for the chords or rhythm. The first two chords instantly changed the key from C major to minor, and this led to the interesting D major chord. That stood out to my ear, and pretty much dictated the rest of the chords that followed. It's nice when that happens!

I immediately sang the chorus with the lyrics as they still are. They came so quickly I thought they can't be good, but they seemed to fit the vibe of the music. And try as I have, I could never come up with anything that fit as well.

Derek Sherinian showed up at the studio we shared, heard me playing it and asked what it is. I told him I just made it up. He said, "that's cool! It needs the Pipes of Pan!" He sat on his keyboards and came up with the flute lines on the spot. I said, "yeah! That's great!" and we started working on all the other bits and pieces.

We agreed the chord progression should be used for the verse and chorus, but we should go to a brand new chord progression for the guitar solo so it stands out from the rest of song and increases the drama. I went to Ab, the b6 in C, and Derek took it from there with fancy, lush chords. This all inspired the meat of the solo melody. We agreed the only way out is to go back the intro and take it out with the chorus getting bigger and more intense.

When we re-recorded it for the Led By Vultures record, we stuck real close to the demo. The only thing changed were the verse lyrics and melody. I wanted the lyrics to create imagery more than anything, yet still build up to the chorus sentiment, which is simply about try to find contentment in life and stay on a path that gets you where you want to go!

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here