Singled Out: Good Terms' Progress

05-21-2025

L.A. rockers Good Terms released their brand new single "Progress" today, and to celebrate we asked vocalist/guitarist Brian McShea to tell us about the track, which arrives just ahead of their big Walk-A-Thon event. Here is the story:

"Progress" is a big song, not just because we're making a big swing with the release, but because it's soaked up so much meaning for us as we've made it. What started as a stream-of-conscious rambling into my notes app a few years ago has tumbled into this massive snowball of perseverance and determination as it's rolled up the mundane failings of my 20s, the insane journey Good Terms has endured, and now the fallout of losing my Altadena house in the Eaton Fire. It's like the little song that could, chugging thru all these ups and downs, carrying more and more meaning as it's gone on.

We got together to make "Progress" into the emo banger it is now just a few months ago, so there's a fresh energy to the performance and the riffs, but the words came what feels like forever ago - January 2020. The old times. We had been working on Good Terms for some time at this point, but we hadn't released anything, or so much as made an Instagram. I had just quit Starbucks to work as a wedding musician. Things felt optimistic (man seriously it's crazy how optimistic January 2020 felt), but there was a lot of work ahead of me. I was still barely scraping by, smoking a ton of weed, trying to be a good boyfriend, and generally finding my place living in Hollywood (a thing I'd only recommend to very self-driven individuals. I was exercising that drive one day by taking my dog Tony to the Silverlake dog park when the words to "Progress" came. I wrote them as they came into my notes app, which is my favorite way to write a song. I've done my share of scheming and planning for songs, but there's nothing like a basically fully-formed song just coming to you, melody and all. I had recently sustained a couple personal failures that were just so dumb - I got my mom these patterned blue and white bowls I thought she would like for Christmas, but never actually sent them to her. I'd gone to urgent care after feeling chest pains for them to tell me it was literally nothing and I was freaking out (I know sometimes you're supposed to push doctors when they say that, but I really was just anxious - like I said, I was smoking a ton of weed). With the upcoming uncertainty of my new job, I was feeling a little shaky in my determination, and that's where the lyrics came from.

Then, a lot of things happened. Lockdown. My band's first single. Our first album. Lockdown ended. I got new jobs, quit old ones. Our band's first show. First tour. Fast and Furious 9 and 10. My girlfriend and I moved in together and then had to move out cuz the landlord wouldn't fix the only toilet. My band released new songs, and then a whole new album. I got even more new jobs. I stopped smoking weed. My girlfriend and I got a new place and a cat. I bought an engagement ring and stashed it in my desk.

Then, the Eaton Fire came and wiped out my whole town.

We lost everything. Guitars, furniture, hand-me-down vintage t-shirt collections, everything but the dog and cat (obviously the most important things in the house anyway). Talk about trying to make progress! It was like all our plans and goals were thrown up into the air, and we had to try to catch them all. Where are we going to stay? How are we going to recover? Can we get time off from our jobs? What about Good Terms' plans? There was no way around it; we just had to go a day at a time (really an hour at a time) and figure out what life was going to look like going forward. It changed absolutely every way I thought about what progress meant to me. It used to feel like I lived in a massive cloud, trying to feel my way around and figure out a way to live, any way, whichever way was easiest.

After the fire, there were so many decisions I needed to make all the time. What to buy first, when to go back to work, what our new timeline would look like. There was no way to pick whichever way was easiest because none of it was easy. And that meant I took a lot of pride in every new decision I made. We also had some blessings to count - my bandmates started a GoFundMe for us that made recovery possible. People from all parts of our lives donated to it. And, inarguably the best by-product of this whole disaster, I found the engagement ring intact underneath the rubble, and turned around and asked my then-girlfriend-now-fiance to marry me.

Then it was finally time to get back to Good Terms. We'd been talking about putting out a new single in May since before the fires, and the song we'd chosen was, serendipitously, "Progress." We arranged it together in our rehearsal studio, which was a first for us (hey look at that, progress). We recorded it on the quickest timeline we'd ever had. The lyrics don't mention the fires, but lines like "I can't retreat to the way I used to be," "I am so much better than the way I was before," and "Wash me clean so I can be brand new" mean so much more than they used to. They were always true, but they had so much power, knowing that I literally can't go back, and that I like who I am now, and that we were able to take our blackened and charred engagement ring and restore it back to bright and shiny gold.

I think of writing songs like designing playgrounds. I don't know what they'll be used for; this might be a pirate ship one day and a princess's castle the next, and the way I place the swings has to accommodate both. I got that experience with "Progress" myself as it turned from the insecure whining of a mid-20s ball of anxiety to a reminder that sometimes, progress looks like still being with your favorite people while all hell is breaking loose around you. I'm so grateful for the song, because after all the things I lost in the fire, I still got to keep "Progress."

P.S. my favorite part of the song is the silly country licks right before the breakdown. What the hell possessed us to do that? I have no idea. But I have pride in that decision too.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here including details about Walk-A-Thon Hiking Event on May 24th in LA to raise money for Notes For Notes