Hook Me Up - Writing and Development

Writing and Development

The album was mainly written and recorded in the girls' home in Los Angeles with German songwriter Toby Gad. Jessica Origliasso states "It was really great. Toby works on a simplified set-up on his Mac computer. It takes all the pressure out of being in a recording studio. We were able to take our time and get it right and not stress about time ticking." When working on the album the girls knew exactly which songwriters they wanted to work with including Billy Steinberg (who has worked with Madonna) and John Feldmann (who has worked with Good Charlotte and The Used). The songwriting saw the girls write about personal things in life mainly to do with love. The song "Revenge Is Sweeter (Than You Ever Were)" is about a person who Lisa Origliasso dated overseas, she states "When it comes down to it, that song's about cheating. A lot of people have been through it, like I've been through it, so it was very easy to relate to that situation. And I saw that whole situation go on, so it wasn't hard to write that song with her." Another personal song includes "In Another Life", is the most emotional song they've ever written. Lisa states that "While recording this song we couldn't sing it properly because we were bawling our eyes out". Jess says, "You actually hear me sniffing in the background".

In the song "Take Me on the Floor", the girls state that they "want to kiss a girl". Lisa states "Yeah, there's a sexual undertone to that song, but when we were writing it we were thinking about having fun, going to a club, being on the dancefloor. You can interpret it how you like." Jessica states "It would have been so easy to have made a record just like the first, with unison voices on the verse and chorus. It worked for us on the first record; it became a trademark sound. Not degrading it, we loved it, but at some point you have to grow as an artist or you get stuck." Lisa states "We made that record two years ago. It would be so dated to do it again. I feel we're staying current but staying ourselves. It was a natural progression. We wanted a challenge, to take it somewhere new. People had become used to our sound. Other artists released that sound using songs we'd written. We get asked, "Did you get pushed into this sound?" We were doing the pushing!".