Songfacts®:

• This is a track from When the Smoke Clears, Hinder's fifth studio album and the band's first to feature Marshal Dutton as lead vocalist. Dutton told Artist Direct the story of the song: "The song 'Dead to Me' was actually written before I was in Hinder back in 2010. I was, however, out on tour with Hinder doing pre-production demos for the All American Nightmare record. We had a day off in Nashville and Cody (Hanson) had a writing session already booked, so he offered to get me a different session with a couple of guys he had recently met. I accepted and met these two fellas at a hotel in Nashville, and to my surprise, one of them was an old buddy of mine named Brandon Tant from back in my days in the Denton/Dallas scene!"
  
  "Brandon was playing in a Denton-based band back then called Crimson Soul, and as a result of shows we played together while I was touring with Faktion, I got to know him over a period of years between 2007-2009," Dutton continued. "The other dude was an awesome fella named Vencent Hickerson, or 'Big Vinny' and he and Brandon were playing in a band called Trailer Choir at that time in Nashville. We hit it off and wrote 'Dead to Me' in that session. When we were almost through with the song, Cody showed up. We had pretty much everything, but we were stuck on the tag line. Cody walked in, heard the song and suggested that we use the phrase 'You're dead to me' for the tag line as well. We were all like, 'That's a great idea, why didn't we think of that?!!' and that's how the song came about… and Cody refused to take any credit. Thanks Cody!"
  
  "We originally cut a demo of the song for my band, Faktion, but we never released it and we broke up shortly after. The Hinder guys always loved the song, so it was brought up during the making of When the Smoke Clears," he added. "We decided to revamp the production and give it a go, and in the end it made the record! It's pretty crazy how songs can seem to lay around for years and then resurface just at the right time."