The Demos We're (Probably) Never Going To Get - Vol. 1
If you follow this blog and archive, chances are you're more than aware of the countless demos and unreleased songs that we've heard about from the band Waterparks. While on special occasions, we've gotten releases such as 1 or 2, or full Instagram live stream leaks of demos, there are quite a handful of unreleased songs and demos - some of which are fan favorites - that we're most likely never going to see a release of. These are some of those demos.
1. "Waiting" (sometimes erroneously referred to by fans as 'Need Me Back') - a Double Dare demo that was partially leaked in October of 2018 on an Instagram live stream. Awsten claimed that the song is good, but just not as creatively diverse as the other songs that made it onto the album. To this day, Awsten says he has no plans of releasing that demo (part of the reason being that he can't even access the original project file anymore due to corruption).
2. "Zip" - a FANDOM demo that was partially leaked in November of 2023 on Twitter. A PARXAFTERDARK2 tweet confirms the full-length of the demo to be just 2 minutes and 11 seconds long. Despite fans being vocal about their love for the song, Awsten views the initial leak as being underwhelming in terms of support, and has decided against leaking the full song. It's unknown if this sentiment will change, considering how often fans bring up this demo, but it doesn't seem likely.
3. "Play" - a Friendly Reminder track that was leaked in July of 2019. The song was teased multiple times throughout 2018, and upon the full leak on an Instagram live stream, fans were dying for an official release. When the FANDOM tracklist was revealed, Awsten confirmed Play was 'dead', and when people ask about when we might be getting 'Play' at any point, Awsten jokingly goes "you already have the full song" in response. While he did mention that he was considering reworking the song on a TikTok stream from late 2024, the original song itself will probably not see an official, high quality release in the future.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, if more demos are to be released as a part of the 2nd demo album, they will most likely only be demos from FANDOM onward. Awsten has mentioned that, during a computer change in 2018/2019, a lot of his old project files got corrupted, leaving the only remnants of any pre-FANDOM demos to be full-song exports and alternate mixes. The plan for demo album 2 appears to be releasing demos Awsten loves but most likely won't fit on any future albums, and gives him a chance to polish it up on his own outside of studio time. It's why we have yet to see anything about the unreleased fan favorite, "Gwen Stefani", because that is currently being reworked for the next Waterparks album as of now.
Now, there may come a point where Awsten may decide to drop these songs in some fashion. He's expressed a few times in the past about wanting to do b-side compilations and demo boxsets, though there hasn't been too many mentions of that in the past few years, especially with the demo albums now in existence. As of now, it's most likely the case that these demos won't see the light of day for a long time.
Which demos do you hope eventually see the light of day?
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blakekathryn
prguitarman
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