"We Are" is the first official single from Hollywood Undead's third studio albumNotes from the Underground and was released as the fifth track on the album.
Composition and lyrics
The song is sung by several members of the band; Danny singing the chorus, Johnny 3 Tears rapping the first verse and J-Dog rapping the second verse, and the final verse is screamed by J-Dog as well. A bridge is sung by both J-Dog and Danny. The song is often put next to the Swan Songs single Young by fans as it has similar vibes and meanings to the song. The lyrics of the song were inspired by America's Youth quoted by Johnny 3 Tears, as he continues "...I feel a full-on empathy for what kids are going to have to go through cause it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. In fact, it seems quite the opposite. It’s pretty sickening sometimes, man."
Music video
The official music video was released on 10 December, which was directed by Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan, the percussionist of Slipknot. The music video has various different scenes happening, such as Da Kurlzz isolated in a fenced area being ignored by the crowds walking by, Funny Man robbing a liquor store, J-Dog burning pictures of each band member in a church, Danny smashing up televisions in front of a young and frightened girl, Johnny 3 Tears aligning what appears to be cocaine into the phrase "We Are Built From Broken Parts" and Charlie Scene setting a suited man on fire. Crahan made sure to add as many different things in the video to keep it visually interesting, and as he explains in the 'Behind the Scenes' video, and it also mentioned that the video was shot in California in what Danny describes "...the most haunted place in California..." which was later revealed in an interview with Charlie Scene by 'Linda Vista Hospital'.
New masks
This music video was also the first video by the band to include the latest masks -
J-Dog: A white mask with two gas mask filters on the cheeks with a Dollar symbol and his eyes glow red and God's all seeing eye on his forehead.
Johnny 3 Tears: Left side of his mask consists of the number 3 and his right consists of butterflies with a black background as before, but this mask has a mosaic design added.
Charlie Scene: Dark grey bandanna with matt black spectacles, same as before.
Funny Man: A black cloth mask with silver outlining, much like a Lucha Libre mask, on the right cheek, 3 dots, on his forehead are his initials FM.
Da Kurlzz: More threatening, his left is all sad, while his right is burnt red evil.
Danny: Mask seems more metal plated, and the Latin cross on his eye has been replaced with bullets.
Lyric video
Prior to the release of the single, a lyric video was published on Hollywood Undead's official YouTube channel on 29 October, a day before the single was released onto iTunes. The video, as well as providing the lyrics of the song, has various clip scenes of advertisements and urban landscapes, from sky scrapers to rubble.
Reviews
We Are was met with positive reviews, Aristdistrict giving it a 10 out of 10.
