Story of a Song is a monthly segment on KCUR'sCentral Standard in which local musicians tell the story behind a song they have written or are performing.
The Band: Bummer
The Song: "Bad News"
The Songwriters: Matt Perrin and Mike Gustafson
The Story: Bummer is a noise rock band. They're loud, the bass is hammering, the drums explode and the vocals scream at you. But their songs are reflections on relationships, animal cruelty and, in the case of “Bad News,” sexual assault at college.
"You just see a lot of that and it pissed me off and I wrote a song about it," Perrin says.
"My floor was really terrible. It was really known for being the 'Jersey Shore floor.' One night I came home to a girl who literally got her face beaten in because she refused to have sex with a guy," Perrin recalls. "This girl was bleeding from her face and I had to help her and put her in a room with my roommate. And to see stuff like that. It disgusted me."
Rape culture is everywhere on college campuses, Perrin says, but people don't want to see it.
It was that experience and the outrage he felt after that inspired the song, "Bad News."
Matthew Long-Middleton is a producer of the show Central Standard.
