BLOG PART 4
DAY 6: Fogal: So into week 2. I think most people had a good chill out weekend to re-energise. One of us went to a 90s rock concert (SKIN), one to a pop concert (Little Boots/ Ellie Goulding), two people saw Paranormal activity and some failed at Christmas shopping. We didn’t get to the studio until lunch time and thought we would tackle an easier one – Hope is not Enough. Nice and straight-forward. We all loved the demo version of this song so spent most of the time trying to recreate the sound from the demo. Got some good feeling into it. Very pleased, and fairly chilled out now. I was wanting to change my drum part from the demo version but decided to leave it.
Bowis: Time to get some chilli con carne in us to warm us up. And Rambo: First Blood 2 is on the telly. Excellent news! I wonder if we can get the hat-trick this week… Hmm, is that how you write hat-trick? Hattrick. Hatrick. Nothing looks quite right.
DAY 7: Tuesday, up early, good big breakfast as we knew this would be a tough day. Today we record Kings. Kings is another song which has gone through changes since we first started writing it. We played this on The Sisters of Mercy Tour and the song has moved on heeps since then. This is my most challenging drum part. It has so many different changes and bits to fit together. We needed several breaks from this to gather thoughts. We are still debating over if we have the right take going. Man its tough. Me and Ali chose to go for a walk and do some filming in the field. We got surrounded by sheep. I’m broken, just finished making a Bolognese and letting it rest in time for a good sit round meal after a long day.
Bowis: it was like a scene from The Birds out there. Except with sheep. They were all nervous, as sheep tend to be, as we walked down the lane to the gate. Then we turned to head back to the house, and they had entirely blocked the road. There must have been thousands of them! Then we started to walk back, and they blocked the road behind us too. Just keep very still…..OK now very slowly move towards them, and for god’s sake don’t make eye-contact! Well I don’t want to ruin the ending, but we made it back with only a few bite marks.
Very excited recording We Were Kings. I love the song, I love the way the guitars work with each other. But more importantly, they actually let me play a guitar part of my own!I couldn’t believe my luck, I have barely even picked up a guitar in my life. They look far too fragile and have more strings than I would have thought possible. So anyway, I stuck to the bottom two, and it went very mostly smoothly. I can’t wait to hear the results. Hope they don’t bury me in the mix too much.
DAY 8: Up early again. Lots to do. It’s starting to get colder too. I think there will be snow tonight. Today is Progress Is A Snake. We just finished tinkering with this before we came out here, although it is the oldest song of all of these. It has changed quite a bit since we first started playing it, especially in the middle. So it is going to be another one that is very exciting to see how it turns out. Start out with the bass, drums and Dave’s guitar again. There is a fun rocking bassline in there. This album is full of bits for me to get excited about! No solos though. Not till the third album anyway. Then it’s time for more guitars, and synths, while Simon starts making his experimental Caribbean stew.
My word that was spicy!!I can’t feel my mouth, I can just taste pain! Very tasty though. It’s always nice to take a chef or two recording with you. To continue the cooking vibe, we experiment with recording a variety of kitchenware as percussion for a bit. Hmm, that sounds a bit weird. Maybe not. I feel like I have joined Stomp for the last half-hour or so.
