Having compiled a large amount of material to be presented to the band we thought we’d take a trip to the summer house before winter fully sets in to gather some of the magic from the house to spice up what is to become the new album.
On the Friday night after work Mikael and I drove out to the cabin to set up the equipment. I was delayed as i had to drive our new budgie home. His name is “silver” by the way and he might be a girl.
Mikael and I started by listening to all the demos that I had prepared all summer and after a rather painful session of deletion we were left with about 30 minutes of music that we consider to be the right stuff. I know they say “kill your darlings” but i lost about 30 minutes of music that I had grown attached to! What carnage!
After getting all the tracks ready for the vocal session scheduled for the Saturday we retired to bed. By that I mean separate beds just to be clear. The night was freezing cold and I actually had to get up in the middle of the night to secure some extra blankets and my jacket to avoid hypothermia. I couldn’t understand why the room was so cold and didn’t find out until next morning when I staggered down on frozen limbs to see if coffee might restore the system. It turns out Mikael had brought his sleeping bag which is made for outdoor winter use and because he was so warm he had opened the window to full blast to avoid steaming like a clam. Life is perspective I say.
Jan Henrik and Jon Arne arrived lunchtime and for the next 12 hours we worked nonstop getting some lovely vocal and guitar ideas down. By great luck I actually managed to film the take where Jan Henrik comes up with the melody for the chorus of a song called “know your time” (can be seen on our Facebook page). When the album is released I hope we can all look back at that film and enjoy watching the making of a modern classic. Jan Henrik left for a wet walk, bus and ferry trip home in storm conditions around midnight and as I haven’t heard from him since I hope he still walks among us. I’ll let you know.
The rest of the night we spent working on getting some guitars done and as that didn’t involve me I had a chance to go all “mad men” and drink whisky and ice.
This week I’ll be working on getting the tracks sorted out for a full fledged bass and drums session to stop the album sounding like a classical album. The concept and the ideas for content are “constantly in change” as the song says but some pretty far out things are being churned out on a daily basis so I have no fear we’ll land on something. Let’s just hope it’s good (he said).
Love
T