Rick DeJesus was born on September 20, 1983. As Adelitas Way’s singer and songwriter, he drew on difficult jobs and everyday confrontations for his lyrics. Those experiences informed “Sick,” from the band’s 2011 album Home School Valedictorian, which grew out of his frustration with people in positions of authority.
His approach developed through working with other musicians. In a 2009 interview with Ink 19’s Elianne Halbersberg, DeJesus described making demos while finding his voice, then meeting guitarist Chris Iorio and starting to jam. His lyrics often began with things he had lived through; Iorio supplied riffs, and ideas developed as the musicians played together. DeJesus wanted listeners to recognize something of their own lives in the songs. That combination of personal material and collaboration shaped the band’s self-titled debut.
The recording needed to retain some roughness, too. DeJesus said the band chose producer Johnny K because they wanted the guitars and performances to keep their edge. They spent three months making the record, living at the studio and working roughly 14 hours a day. Released in 2009, Adelitas Way included “Invincible,” which became the theme for WWE Superstars.
On “Sick,” co-written with Marti Frederiksen, DeJesus gave a more specific account of where that personal material came from. Speaking with David Hens during the 2012 Uproar tour, he described encounters with security personnel and bosses who had treated him badly. Watching an employee receive the same treatment could provoke the same response. “I felt exactly that way as I was writing it,” he said in the interview, later published by Music N’ Other Drugs. Adelitas Way were playing Uproar’s main stage by that interview. Asked about their progress since an opening slot for Alter Bridge in 2011, DeJesus pointed to how much the performances had changed through constant playing. He believed the group was improving from show to show, and that experience became something he wanted to preserve on a recording.
The frustrations running through his writing also continued into Stuck, the band’s third album, released in 2014. DeJesus explained to The Pulse of Radio that its title reflected people he knew, including himself, who wanted to move forward but felt unable to. The single “Dog on a Leash” approached a related problem: feeling that someone else controlled your decisions, whether at work or in a relationship.
“Dog on a Leash” and the title track were the first ideas that established the record’s direction, DeJesus told Full Metal Jackie on Loudwire Nights. The band worked with Nick Raskulinecz, whose recordings with Foo Fighters helped convince DeJesus that he could capture the sound they wanted. At a cabin outside Nashville, the aim was to retain the character of the instruments and voices heard in their live performances. “We wanted to just play the record,” DeJesus told Jackie. He approached Stuck as a complete album that listeners could spend time inside, working toward that experience over a year and a half. The preparation also left room for an immediate response at the microphone: he described occasions when the first lines that came out as he sang became the lines that stayed on the finished recording.
