Lost & Found is out tomorrow! (Friday, October 2nd for future readers). It’s the first of three singles I recorded with the Waxwings at Humm Studios back in August. It’s been doing the rounds in my live set for a while now so I’m chuffed it’s finally recorded and ready to share with you all.
It started life in rehearsal room 2 in RS Studios, with me strumming chords at random on my acoustic guitar. I was searching for a song that was straightforward, energetic and upbeat – something that would give my live sets a kick. I don’t remember how ‘Lost & Found’ came about as a lyric. It’s odd to me given that it’s an American phrase, but it arrived from the musical ether nonetheless. It was handily a pretty easy springboard to what the rest of the song would be about.
It was a great relief that by the time it was written I was in the very early days of assembling ‘the Waxwings’, meaning that rather than arranging all the parts myself, as I’d largely done with my previous singles, I could leave it to musicians that were much more capable with their instruments. One by one Ben, David, Frankie and Mike joined, each adding their own part and fine tuning them from gig to gig over many months. The backing vocals were finished last, recorded in my living room just weeks ago.
So, already it was sounding like the business. Then Dom Mitchison did a superb job producing and mixing it, as did Shawn Joseph with the master, squeezing the last bits of potential out from the recording. They’re both based a stones throw from my neighbourhood which is cool; the song is a veritable homegrown meal.
All that remained was an awkward but great photoshoot out in Bristol city centre with my brother Doug, who took a wonderful photo for the artwork. Some guy also said he really liked my outfit before wishing me luck with the shoot, which helped with my embarrassment from all my very public photo posing. Thank you random man.
That’s Lost & Found then. Thanks to everyone’s efforts it feels like my best work yet. If you haven’t pre-saved and wouldn’t mind doing it that’d be much appreciated for all those boring algorithm reasons. Otherwise I hope you all enjoy the first in this next phase of singles. I’m very proud of it.
Happy listening!
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