A completed song about unfinished songs… written about in a completed blog! Things are looking up.
My sophomore single ‘The Half a Song Blues’ is releasing this Friday, and it’s been a rollercoaster of a process. For a start, the image you see above was once the artwork, before my brother Doug and I opted to shoot something entirely different. It does however conveniently work rather well for this blog post. But I digress. The point is we’ve gone all sorts of places for this single – let’s get into it.
First up, as Dan Weltman did such a wonderful job producing ‘Dreams’, I travelled once again to The Living Room Studios in Bristol. I tracked the acoustic guitar, lead vocals and tambourine there. On his website Dan describes the studio as a ‘song laboratory’ which I think is very apt; the arrangement of this song did not come to me easily, but we tinkered over the months. Well, tinkered sometimes, hacked others – we completely changed the start of the song at one point. Regardless, Dan yet again indulged all my good ideas and steered me away from the bad ones. He is the ideal song partner if you need your work recorded and completed well. With added biscuits and Rooibos tea.
For the vocals, I was excited to have a variety of voices on the track this time round, as I wanted the song to sound like a bit of a jam. So, aside from producing, Dan was also kind enough to lend some soulful harmonies to the track, alongside my good friend and music duo partner Ben McCollum, whom recorded some spot on parts from his bedroom studio. Completing the gang I borrowed some more friends Oli Boorman and Ethan Hatch from Hoaster (anyone fancy a gig at O2 Academy Bristol this Saturday?) to lend their voices for those big chorus moments, which we recorded in their bassist/my pal Oscar’s house.
(there are no pictures for this, alas. Enjoy some more words.)
I’m very pleased with how naturally all these constituent bits came together, given that they were recorded in three seperate and acoustically distinct locations, and with different microphones too. Nice work all.
On the topic of different locations, I did actually visit another studio during the process; a common haunt for the musicians of Weston-super-Mare, 13 Sound Studios. I’ve known Ken and Charlie Lintern for years now, they’re great folks with a superb space for recording acoustic instruments – drums, in this particular instance, with my friend Ethan again. I didn’t give him much notice, and there’s a fair few daft stops and extra bars here and there in the song, yet still he made light work of it. A properly bluesy, authentic drum track with all the flourishes you get from a real musician, captured effectively by Charlie. Bish bash bosh.
Now, for a bit of spice. Who’s heard of a Wurlitzer? Sounds a bit like a German Wurzel… I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before (I just looked this up, ‘wurzel’ is also the German word for ‘root’! Who knew? I was thinking of brand new combine harvesters and such). Actually, it’s a gorgeous type of electric piano, with precisely the smooth, groovy tones I was looking for to elevate the song. You could replicate this sound digitally of course, but my friend Elliot Salvage happens to own other toys besides the Hammond Organ he laid down on ‘Dreams’.
Look at all those wires. Corr. Authentic goodness. Elliot played supremely well as per, giving me lots of fabulous takes to choose from. For recording we managed to upgrade from his stairwell to his bedroom this time which was a bonus.
The last few bits I haven’t mentioned I recorded myself at home; being the electric guitar, bass guitar and shakers. Dan helped me make sense of this pick ‘n’ mix list of parts, hailing from various bedrooms and studios around the South-West, until we finally had our finished song, which I once again handed over to Cameron at Optimum Mastering to get it radio ready. As I mentioned earlier as well, my brother Doug has shot a fabulous piece of artwork to cap it all off.
It’s been an 8 month journey, one far longer than I had planned (nothing new there), but one that I’m immensely proud has yielded another finished project. If I wanted it to be easy I probably shouldn’t have named it ‘The Half a Song Blues’…
Thanks for reading. It’ll be available from midnight tonight. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.