Sleeping With Sirens released the single “Kick Me” on November 10, 2014, introducing their move from Rise Records to Epitaph. The song arrived with a music video and became the lead single for Madness, the band’s fourth studio album.
Sitcom Soldiers filmed the video at Camden Underworld in London in August 2014, before the band’s appearances at Reading and Leeds. The performance featured crowd participation, putting the audience inside the video for a song built around refusing to be pushed around.
“Kick Me” was the first song Sleeping With Sirens made with producer John Feldmann, according to Emily Swanson’s 2015 cover story for BLUNT. An earlier album, recorded with Nick Raskulinecz, was set aside as the band reconsidered its direction. Feldmann was initially brought in to work on a few tracks, but the collaboration grew into the sessions for Madness. Singer Kellin Quinn told Swanson that having a producer who could recognize a direction and help the band pursue it reduced the pressure they had been carrying themselves.
The appeal was practical as well as personal. In a 2015 interview with The AU Review, Quinn described Feldmann as a collaborator who pushed him toward ideas he wouldn’t have reached alone. He also valued the producer’s attention to arrangement. “He takes the songs and really structures them right,” Quinn said. He contrasted that involvement with earlier experiences of producers agreeing with the band or being unsure which direction it wanted to take.
For “Kick Me,” Quinn was chasing a particular kind of aggression. He told TeamRock in May 2015 that he had The Offspring and Refused in mind when they wrote it, and wanted to recapture a raw energy he hadn’t heard in some time. The lyric matches that intention: its narrator refuses to accept other people’s judgments and answers the prospect of being knocked down with a challenge.
The band also had to decide who would release the new material. In Jonah Bayer’s 2015 Myspace interview, Quinn explained that they had finished the album before choosing a label. Major labels had shown interest, but Sleeping With Sirens went with Epitaph. Quinn treated possible radio crossover as a bonus; he put more weight on the audience already buying tickets and supporting the band. Speaking to BLUNT, he also pointed to Epitaph’s history and its belief in the music as reasons the partnership felt right.
Madness followed on March 17, 2015, with “Kick Me” in the opening slot. The track’s life onstage was developing alongside the album campaign. In an interview with Loudwire published that March, Quinn said he was becoming comfortable giving concert audiences parts of “Kick Me” to sing. Fans were learning the new material well enough for him to begin sharing the vocal with them.
“Kick Me” went on to win Song of the Year at the 2015 Alternative Press Music Awards.
