Recording a Hit Song, Glastonbury calls.....Nobody Answers

Back in the winter of 2011, my old band recorded our E.P, entitled "First Light". In short, it was a truly amazing experience for all of us, but sadly, a short lived one, that fizzled out before take-off, like a wet firework. Here I will tell you the tale of how it all came about, show you some pictures of the process and let you hear the final recording itself.

The Early Years

Recalling how we first started playing together back in 2008, with just a couple of dusty old guitars and a dirt cheap P.A speaker that I bought from a budget electrical wholesaler; It all had about as much sonic clarity as swamp full of trumpets. I remember a particularly awful song that I penned in the early years, called "National Pride". It was a parody of blind patriotism and the ignorance it engenders, and whilst far from original conceptually, it was interesting to me at the time as it felt like a form of activism that I could really apply myself to. However, the song was far from a masterpiece, in fact, on latter year playback it became increasingly evident that these early numbers invoked a previously unparalleled degree of cringing and self loathing. Thankfully, I developed as a writer and musician through those formative years, resisting the urge of releasing such infantile auditory torment to any so unlucky to be within earshot of a play through.

Anyway, moving on and fast forward to Early 2011......my good friend, and the drummer in the band, was being pro-active, as he always is, and decided to send out our then current, ropey demo to a top producer, just for a laugh. This producer has worked with the cream of the crop of music royalty for decades; all highly renowned and respected figures at the very top of their game. When he told us that he'd sent our songs to him, we dismissively laughed off any chances of the demo ever getting an audition, let alone a response. 

Then a few days later, he replied, saying how he had enjoyed our songs and that he'd like to come and hear us play. We were gobsmacked, I mean, totally blown away! It was madness, really, like a dream come true for us. He has worked intimately with our absolute idols of music, people we adore, idolise and revere with god like status. What on Earth was he coming to watch us play for, we all thought.

Time To Get Serious

A date was set for him to come and hear us play. Things suddenly got serious very quickly. Realisation was setting in of the opportunity that was standing before us. Just to give a little bit of perspective for you, the lions share of our rehearsals, up until this point, mostly consisted of us playing pranks on one another and not actually getting any music done, so the fact that we had totally chanced our luck and landed the jackpot without ever really taking ourselves seriously was hilarious to us. We were beyond excited; like kids on christmas eve, which just added more fuel to the fire of our collectively unhinged approach. However, we knew that we had to up our game, in regards to rehearsals from this point on, so that we'd be in the best of shape when he came to hear us play. 

Over the next few weeks, we did just this, we really knuckled down, but if anything, the wind-ups and pranks that we vowed to curtail on embarkment of this new, serious phase, only escalated more dramatically the closer we got to the audition. An example of this was when I ramped it up to levels previously unseen on our final rehearsal. 

The Folly of High Jinks

As previously noted, we would often lark about continuously during our rehearsals. We would wind each other up ferociously, taking it in turns ripping and being ripped to shreds by one another, like a flock of vultures feasting on the latest carcass of abuse, being particularly vulgar for the most part and creating the most messed up outcomes in our own fantasy versions of  "what if" for all and any of the scenarios that we happened to be joking about on any given day. 

We would usually record our rehearsals for keeping track of any changes that we were making to songs and for general post jam review. These recordings would always contain our banter, profanities and delirium in between song run throughs. In fact, these parts were always more entertaining than the music we were working on. Perhaps we should have tried to break it into the comedy circuit instead. 

We were asked to send the recording of our final rehearsal to the producer, so that he could get a feel for where we were at with the material, just before he came to hear/watch us play. This particular rehearsal saw us joking, in between songs, about kidnapping him when he arrived, wrapping him up with rope and duct tape to a chair in the corner of the room and keeping him captive, feeding him only cold beans for as long as it took, until he agreed to give us a record contract, amongst other unmentionable things.

You Did What??!!

I would always do an edit and cut out all of the obscenities from the rehearsal recordings that we would play or send to people. This was a strict protocol we couldn't afford to skimp on. A few days before the producer was due to come and see us play, I decided to prank the rest of the band with something that I knew would crush their souls into infinitesimal fragments. One by one, I called them that morning.....

"Hello mate, how are you doing? I've got a bit of bad news to tell you, in fact some really awful news, god, I hope that you're sitting down......basically, you know the last recording I sent out? Well, I forgot to edit it, and that frenzied banter where we we joking about kidnapping him, tying him to a chair and feeding him beans until he gave us a record contract hadn't been cut out, I just listened back to what I sent him, and I'm totally freaked out, we're f****ed!" 

This was followed by a deafening silence, then the sound of total and utter devastation. 

In fact one of the band members who I told in person that morning, almost fainted. His face; turned ghostly pale, whilst falling to his knees in despair, proclaiming "This is the end, we are totally ruined, no-one will ever want to work with us in the music industry ever again"

A Welcome Revelation

Did I send out a recording with the cackle of our mad ramblings slathered all over it? Of course not.

Was anything that we were saying, when we were messing about, in any way nasty or malicious? Of course not.

It would only serve to reveal us as people living well and truly within the realms of total lunacy, not as the consumate professionals we were honestly aspiring to be. There is a proven link between creative people and mental illness. Our shenanigans would only support this finding.

I kept the prank up for as long as I could, but after a while the pain was too much too witness. He is a good friend after all. 

We did the audition a few days later and it couldn't have gone any better. From there we arranged a concrete date to record our music at the producer's studio. Things developed very quickly over the course of the next few months. We were even due to play at Glastonbury, but sadly, the band broke up shortly after this studio recording, so obviously it never happened. 

Below are some pictures taken from this recording session, followed by a link to one of the finished songs.

I hope you enjoy!

A Gretsch Jazz Kit, Fender Stratocasters, P Bass and Washburn Semi-Acoustic Electric:

Various Vintage Fender and MusicMan Amps:

An 100 Year Old Organ:

A Piano Mic'ed Up:

The Piano's Innards:

Me:

The Recording Room:

Sonic Reflections:

Fender Deluxe Reverb Amp Mic'ed Up:

Tweaking the Line 6 Effects Pedal:

A Squire Classic Vibes Custom Telecaster Mid Riff:

Our Song in Pro Tools:

We Look Like What We are:

https://soundcloud.com/naem/we-look-like-what-we-are