PREMIERE: Runaway Kids give up on praying for change with “Take It All”

The best kind of punk rock challenges more than just the ideals of whatever power that the artist responsible for it is opposed to. Good punk rock is born of the ability to turn that critical light inward and dissect your own system of beliefs and your own personal politics by confronting any glaring flaws and working towards bettering whatever it is that you’ve put so much of yourself into. You can’t continue to grow if you refuse to acknowledge that what you’re doing might not be working, and few artists seem to understand that as well as the Los Angelas-based Runaway Kids.

With “Take It All,” listeners get a first-hand look at vocalist Gage Armstrong going to war with a religious higher power. He’s spent a lot of his life praying for change and years of seeing prayers go unanswered left a foul taste in his mouth — reinforcing the idea that actions speak louder than words and that if you want to see any kind of change, you need to take it into your own hands. Guitars shred over unrelenting drums as he howls the final  chorus of “I search every day for a space to clear my brain/So if you can take my pain away from me take it all” only to follow it up with an angry and unforgiving closing lyrics that reads “I fight for a way to escape this mess I’ve made/So if you can take my pain away from me/Take it all/Take it away from me.”

When asked about the track, Armstrong says: “‘Take It All’ is my call to any higher power or sort of God in any religion to either show its face, or give me some sort of a sign. I’m a firm believer that actions are louder than words, and personally I have been shown nothing from the time I’ve spent begging on my knees for someone or something to help me. I am not a disbeliever, nor am I a believer, because anything is possible until proven not. I can tell you, at this point, my faith is running thin.”

Listen below.

You can grab Runaway Kids merch at their online store. The band will be playing a show with Hawthorne Heights on July 1st in Bakersfield, CA and will be announcing a handful of headlining dates in the near future.