SPILL VIDEO PREMIERE: BEAU ANDERSON – “KNOW BY NOW”

BEAU ANDERSON – “KNOW BY NOW”

A SPILL EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE

Atlanta alt-rocker Beau Anderson’s slow and seductive “Know by Now” has a guitar so heavy it’ll leave you buried six feet under and asking Hades himself for help getting back up. The drum pattern has a one-two, one-two, one-two-three-four pattern that’s built to sludgely bang your head to. Each verse has a middle-of-the-night time, starting at three AM, that tells the chronological story of heartbreak, betrayal and death. The extremely catchy chorus has Anderson call-and-responsing his own vocals with, “I thought you’d know by now / (What this means to me) / I hope you figured out / (What you’re watching leave).” Breaking free of a verse-chorus-verse forever structure, the song ends in a satisfyingly powerful bridge-outro-solo climax.

The “Know by Now” video plays out in a faux continuous shot as an insomniac Anderson gets wasted on beer and booze to get through a night of grief-based delusion. Should he call or text ‘her’ while in the throes of drunken sadness? Anderson consults himself as his own angel and devil as the video moves into its denouement of psychedelic madness and destruction.

Anderson had this to say about the song and video:

“Know by Now” is about being hopelessly attached to someone (or maybe even something) framed through the lense of a sleepless, insomnia riddled night, and knowing you should walk away, but also that you probably won’t. I’d argue that it’s the most melodic song on the EP. It’s still heavy, but with a softer, more emotional edge. I think this is the poppiest song of the bunch, even with that sludgy, deep guitar that makes up so much of the other songs.

The song started as a drum beat that I’d been pseudo beatboxing to myself for a day or two. I took 30 minutes one morning to go out to the garage studio and program it so I wouldn’t forget it. Once I had it programmed, I got an idea for a guitar part, so I wanted to try that out. Then a chorus part came to mind. And so on and so forth, until what was meant to be a quick 30 minutes in the garage turned into a seven hour solo demoing session from which I exited with a full song. We even used most of the lead/auxiliary guitars from that demo on the final recording, just taking them straight from the session. I didn’t expect any of that, and I have no clue what had gotten into me creatively, but I’m very thankful I didn’t have any plans that day. It’s honestly one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, one I’m certainly the proudest of.

When we went to record it, I was unsure if that drum beat was actually possible to play. I programmed the demo after all. The morning we did it, I woke up (after not sleeping much, how fitting) and went straight out to the garage, still in my pajamas, and spent 30 minutes trying to play the beat myself to make sure it can be played. Thankfully it was. We were honestly worried about recording the drums on that one. We thought it would take a long time, but somehow it actually ended up being one of the quickest ones. Zach Neal absolutely demolished that outro with the fills he added. He really gave the drum parts life beyond their tapped out, programmed origins.

I’m pretty proud of this one lyrically. It’s pretty much the only one where I took a lead on the words. I presented the guys with a pretty much lyrically complete song, then Chase helped me fine tune some phrasings throughout. When I showed the words to Chase, the only line that was missing was “I wish I’d melt in the sunrise.” I already had the line, but I honestly thought it was kinda stupid. I never wrote it down until he said, “Why not? It works.”

Another line of note is the opening line, “3am awake in bed, stuck on things I wish I’d never said to you,” which I literally wrote at 3 am while awake in bed stuck on things I wish I had never said haha, that was one I had been sitting on for awhile. I’m up at 3 a.m. a lot. I think my favorite line in the song, though, has to be, “don’t know why but I still wanna fight, though it feels like suicide knowing where you’d put your knife.” I don’t know where that one came from but I’m super proud of it. I’m proud of the whole song. Lyrics don’t usually come to me like that. It helps when you actually have something you want to say.

In the video we tried to visualize what the song’s talking about, a sleepless night spent ruminating, reminiscing, and self-medicating with Natty Lights and secret gin. I wish I had some funny stories about the making of the video, but I’m a method actor. So all those beers in the video had to be drank (plus all the other ones that came in the 18 pack of Natural Lights). So that night is a bit fuzzy. I do remember that me, my bassist/videographer Owen, and drummer Zak had a great time. We had a hard time with trying to keep all the clocks in the video on time with their respective lyrics in between takes. We got a really good take only to realize the microwave clock said 3:03 instead of 3:00, but I liked my hair in the take, so we said “screw it” and kept it. Also the shower scene took like five takes, so the house was SOAKED after that.

Beau Anderson
Soundtrack Of Letting Go
(Independent)
Release Date: October 24, 2025

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