In the studio with Dan Swift this week working on our final few tracks for the album – these are ‘Playtime’, ‘Time Machine’, ‘Granted’, ‘Imposter’, ‘Proud’, ‘Hunger’. We laid down the rhythm tracks last week and we are putting down the vocals and guitars this week. Dan is a great producer to work with and again listens to what the musician’s he is producing wants. Also we are at the Ironworks studios in Brighton. Brighton has now pretty much become my second home. We also have some great extra local musicians on keyboards and guitars – boys and girls with heaps of talent.
Laid down bass and drums for some new tracks we are working on with John Robinson of Clique Productions, based in North London, this week. The studio in Tottenham just about fitted in GreG’s mammoth drum kit, decked out with multitudes of cymbals. Dan Spiller of Shoot the Dog productions played a bit of guitar for us too. Vocals and guitars to be laid down over December – watch this space.
We went to Brighton this week to record the first four EP/album songs. We had the pleasure of working with Junk Scientist of Larrikin Love, The Rakes and Imperial Leisure fame. The bulk of the recording was done at Brighton Electric and it was the best experience I’ve ever had in a studio. Matt and I ended up playing the vintage Selmer and Orange Rocker 30 amps which were amazing and had an awesome sound.
GreG ended up playing the Hammond Organ spontaneously, and the terror on his face turned to sheer joy (he thought he was only in the studio to take pics that day!!) as he got into it. At the end of long, manic but wonderfully fun 3 days we recorded ‘Out of Control’, ‘Nobody’s Fool’ ‘Undercover’ and ‘Mine to Keep’, Undercover and Mine to Keep being brand new songs.
Recording is a whole other world with accuracy essential in the studio and lots of room to be creative and improve. Russ made it really fun for us and worked with us to create the sound we wanted and we had an ‘electric’ experience!
Attended ‘A Fistful of Fandango’ at 229 tonight – the first time I’ve been to the upper part of the big venue – Goldheart Assembly and headliners Pete and the Pirates were highlights. I love the folk-rock harmonies of the Goldheart boys and they will be releasing an album through Fierce Panda very soon.
Apart from that we have been in rehearsals, songwriting mode and pre-production with our producer for the upcoming recordings– more details next blog.
Searching high and low for suitable producers for the past few weeks – I feel we are ready to record our songs with a quality producer/s over the next couple of months and it has been cool this month to work on new songs and arrangements for both recording and live gigs, with the boys.
I think the most important thing about the producer has to be that they really understand us and the music and don’t try and mould it to their vision, but instead work with us, listen to us and that we work together to create music that we all love. This is the advantage of not being tied to a big label at the moment and having complete freedom to choose the producers that we want to work with.
It will be great to work in a proper studio, with great equipment and work on the songs in pre-production with the producers.
I’m so excited as now we are getting to where we want to be – now to write those songs
