Bad Omens – Just Pretend

Bad Omens earned their very first airplay No. 1 with their melodic hit, “Just Pretend.” The single was released following “Like A Villain” on August 23, 2022, in anticipation of their RIAA Gold and BPI Silver certified album, The Death of Peace of Mind. The song began to trend immensely on social media and spent over 26 weeks topping the charts.

At the time of the song's inception, vocalist Noah Sebastian was frustrated with the pressure to make music that appeals to mainstream radio. This resulted in writing an ironic parody, but then they realised the major potential of the chorus. The irony of the radio rock parody becoming a No. 1 radio hit was a complete full-circle moment for Bad Omens.

During an interview with Revolver, he was asked about why he thought that track from ‘The Death Of Peace Of Mind’ had become such a big crossover success. He said, “I think it just caught this momentum. It’s a really great song that could transcend our band, you know what I mean? It is easy to cover – I think it could have been a huge hit as a country song if another artist wrote it and delivered it the correct way in the studio. I think it could have been a huge hit as a more indie bedroom pop song. I don’t know. The way that it’s written really transcends more than our genre and our band. And when songs like that are made, they just need one little nudge as far as marketing or radio, just to kind of get it going and get people’s eyes and ears on it.”

On writing the song, he added “I think also on a more analytical level, it gets to the chorus really quickly, which is for most people, obviously, the best part of the song. There’s an expression, I forget what artist said it, but it’s don’t bore us get to the chorus. The vocal delivery in the chorus is one of my proudest accomplishments. It’s one of those melodies that feels so natural to me to sing. Every detail in the vocal delivery, whether it’s the quick flip to falsetto on the high notes, or the vibrato at the tail of certain words, it just came out so naturally. There’s something about a really good vocal take that comes out and feels and sounds natural that people can feel more, emotionally. Everything with that song just fell right into place, the right way at the right time.”

“Just Pretend”’s strong radio presence, millions of streams, and TikTok virality earned it an RMNZ Gold certification, BPI Silver certification, and RIAA Gold certification. In 2023, the music video for the global hit was released, reaching over 50 million views on YouTube. The video's story was written by Sebastian himself and directed by Erik Rojas. The video sucks the watcher into a sci-fi world with a tragic love story. The cinematic video opens up the world of the song that has resonated with fans worldwide.