Scott David Roberts has a long history of writing music, dating back to when he was a just a teenager. Most recently he dove into the metal genre with his new track “Ballad of Beelzebul,” which is about the perpetual decay of the world around us.
“Beelzebul is one of the seven demons of Hell, a chief lieutenant of Satan who does his destruction with seven deadly sins,” Roberts said. “The motivation for the song was just kind of the craziness going on in the world right now with the drugs, wars and how angry and divided we are in society. I started thinking, if Satan was a rock star what might he say if he was singing a song?”
Roberts explained that he came up with a few cool sounding chord progressions that went well with a metal tune, and the lyrics were derived from him essentially seeing the world fall apart while watching the news. Roberts said this is vastly different than his other songs, as he doesn’t often delve into the hard rock genre.
Roberts recorded an acoustic guitar rendition of the tune and brought it to a producer he has worked with in Southern California. They hired a singer from Ecuador named Andre, who is experienced in singing metal songs, but also has a smooth voice to boot.
“He put down some really great vocals,” Roberts said.
For the newest track, “Ballad of Beelzebul,” the influence came out of current events that really struck fear in him. The lyrics are dark and say exactly what he wanted to portray.
“Lyrically the song satisfies me,” Roberts said. “It turned out really what I wanted it to be. This is one of those types of projects where I don’t have any regrets.”
Roberts was born and raised in Oklahoma City, where he lived until moving to Riverside, California with his wife, Jamie, several years ago. When he was in Oklahoma he was more influenced by the sounds of nearby Nashville, but then he started creating more progressive rock styles of music as Southern California was rubbing off on him. This led to writing tunes like “My Sweet Insanity,” “Face of God” and, most recently, “Battle of Beelzebul.”
“My influences really come from my surroundings,” he said.
When Roberts was in his teens he naturally wrote songs about girls and high school life. He started playing at age 13 and composed his first songs called “Where’s The Beer” and “Chillin’ in the Morgue.”
His first guitar was an electric Gibson, and he learned how to play “Smoke on the Water” and others that early musicians start off with. He has since ditched the electric and plays strictly acoustic guitar, and his musical influences generally range from 1970s to 1990s rock, pop and dance music.
At age 23, tragedy struck when his father committed suicide, leading Roberts to be extremely depressed. He was inspired to write a song about the event called “I Really Need To Know,” which he entered into a song competition and won first prize. Part of the prize was a small multi-track recorder that he would use for years to come, recording demos of songs he wrote. Songwriting became a major passion for Roberts.
“From that point on I started experimenting and coming up with different chord progressions, and so forth,” Roberts explained. “I began writing songs as a hobby.”
Roberts plays the guitar daily, but said that writing lyrics is the hardest part when it comes to songwriting. It takes him several month to complete a song for a couple reasons. The first is that he is a paramedic and busy with his career, and secondly is that he likes his lyrics to say something meaningful, and are not just filler.
“Playing the guitar is kind of like my cigarette,” he said. “I sit on the couch and just kind of noodle around, coming up with different chord progressions, and trying to find something original or a little bit out of the norm.”
The creative part is what he loves about it. He enjoys taking chords, writing lyrics and turning it all into a track that he can bring to a studio to finalize. Roberts loves hearing the demo come to life after adding multiple instruments and vocals, often sounding entirely different than what he started with.
“Music is really a spiritual thing,” he said. “The creation of a song is a strange process.”
Be sure to check out “Ballad of Beelzebul” and the music of Scott David Roberts available on all platforms.
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