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"Still" - behind the scenes...
Still is the culmination of the first year of the band's writing and gigging work. With the arrival of Ian Mauricio into the band in December 2005, it was a perfect time to record our favourites of the songs written up to that point, and also to get down on disc a few of the new ones written with Ian.
As an unsigned band, the emphasis was strongly on how to get as good a quality product as possible, on a very tight budget. Consequently we settled on recording the backing tracks (drums, bass and rhythm guitar) at Survival Rehearsal Studios in Acton, and splitting the vocal and guitar overdubs (solos and extra parts) between Survival and 14BR Studios in Chiswick. The hardware we used was Jules' trusty Roland VS-2480, and an assortment of Shure SM57 and SM58 mics. We used 7 mics on the drumkit, one for each amp (Jules using his Laney LC-30, Marc his Fender Hot Rod Deluxe), with Ian's Mesa Boogie head DI'd. Lorna's vocals were recorded using an SM58 and the typical tights/coathanger popshield!
recording...
The first day of recording was January 21st at Survival - a very productive day, resulting in several takes of each rhythm track laid down. The skeleton was also laid down for Sugar although at this point the end result was still a few steps of inspiration away! We didn't want any bleed into the drum mics from either lead guitars or vocals, as we decided that we may want to edit or swap takes of these later, and so Lorna mimed her way through to give us queues - surely she's had more exciting days than this one!
overdubs...
On the second day at Survival (January 22nd) - after Jules had gone through and selected the best take of each rhythm track, Marc laid all of his solos down. For the most part he used his Les Paul although for the clean parts of Still, his Ibanez got a bit of a workout - we should really rename that track "Wes's Ghost"! After Marc finished, we had time for Lorna to record her vocals in their entirety for a handful of the songs, before our time was up in the rehearsal room, leaving the next few days free to finish up the vocals, and for Jules to record his guitar solos and any extra little bits that he thought might fit in.
During the evening of January 23rd, using the 14BR home studio setup in Chiswick, Jules recorded all of his electric guitar solos bar Dreamtime and Sugar, and Lorna recorded all of her vocals again bar Dreamtime and Sugar. The following evening was time to record all of the acoustic guitar overdubs, a few more electric touch ups, and to finish up the vocals for the two remaining songs. Very productive!
mixing...
With all the raw material now recorded, the challenge was on to mix and edit down the performances in time to send them off to the pressing company by the 30th January. This was our self imposed deadline, set in order to make sure we received the CDs back by February 17th, date for our support with Joe Bonamassa. With a decent crowd expected we knew this would be a good target to aim for! So for the next few nights, and all weekend, Jules was holed up in his home studio, picking the best takes and putting them together, bringing out the detail in everyone's playing and editing the songs into a coherant statement.
As well as the mix, Lorna and Jules set about putting the artwork together. A few weeks before Christmas the band got together at Chiswick House, where Phil North took some excellent pictures for use as publicity shots and the like. One in particular had jumped out as being an obvious cover shot straight away, so a short while of digital trickery later, and the front pages were done. Using some excellent photos also taken by Tina Fothergill, the booklet came together over the final weekend, with the CD face itself being a sketch Lorna had drawn over Christmas. As well as the lyrics and credits, the booklet also features an appropriate essay by a good friend of the band, and terrific author, Gareth Hayes. He did a great job of describing things that we find very hard to!
track notes...
1. Push It - This song grew from a riff that Ian and Marc started jamming on during the soundcheck for Ian's first gig with the band in December 2005. A few tweaks to the structure at a rehearsal the week after, and the subject matter for Lorna's lyrics came to her very quickly. A strong statement of female leadership, the song was complete. Stylistically we felt it was a good funky stomp of a blues, something the Black Crowes might come up with - and a good opener for the album!
2. Mercy - As a small aside, this was the first song Lorna and Jules wrote together, while on a weekend trip to Norfolk with Roadhouse in December 2004. It was really the only song that was already fully formed when funkydory came together - the direction of the material that the band was to come up with later had not really made itself apparent yet! Marc is always very lyrical with his solo when performing this song live, and he hits a very melodic groove on this recorded version.
3. Long Time Coming - Structurally, this is a very simple song based on a funky rhythm hook played by Marc. As with many of our songs, this grew from a rehearsal jam, with the inspiration for Lorna's lyrics (the contemplation of a failed relationship) coming to her very quickly. Jules's simple melody at the head was inspired (perhaps obviously) by Pink Floyd, later invoking a swampy blues feel with the middle slide solo.
4. Same Train Home - Perhaps inspired by The Meters, the nucleus of this song was again a groove hit upon by Marc while warming up during a rehearsal jam. A bouncy little number, with a harmony section in the middle somewhat reminiscent of The Allman Brothers - funkydory style!
5. Good To Be Free - A simple I IV rehearsal jam, with strong overtones of Ferrante and Teicher's version of Christo Redentor, was the origin of this song. Starting with the chorus guitar hook, the rest came together quite quickly. Interestingly, this was originally written in A, but moved up to Bb in a move to lighten the song up a bit. As soon as that was done, the whole tone and feel changed completely, inspiring Lorna to approach it as a simple statement of unrestricted joy and freedom.
6. Still - Perhaps the most passionately emotive of all the songs on the cd, Still was born again at a rehearsal, inspired by a rolling guitar riff the Jules thinks he "might have heard tucked away on a Fourplay album somewhere" - this is perhaps the album's strongest example of Lorna's lyrics and delivery fitting the subject of the song perfectly. A plea to a leaving lover - don't go; the rousing and atmospheric slide at the start an apt contrast to Marc's plaintive, yet fiery solo.
7. Northside - One of the few songs on the album where the lyrics came first! Very much a song with a story, this is a funky approach to a straight blues - the 12 bar rulebook thrown out of the window. A very bluesy workout for the vocals, with several time and feel changes throughout the song, this took quite a few rehearsals to get together before we took it out to gig. It's also one of the few songs in the set with back to back guitar solos, hence Jules' slide making a nice contrast to Marc's intense lead.
8. Free and Easy - The main groove for this was born from Hayden's drum pattern, with Jules and Marc's muted picking guitar parts both inspired by going to see a London based band called Station House. Lorna's searching but defiant lyrics are starkly confident, and since it's a short but very punchy and energetic song it often makes a good encore!
9. Cherry Picking - A not especially productive graveyard-shift rehearsal was the setting for this song's creation. Having struggled to jam a ballad together (a ballad that never did come together!), the band's frustration was beginning to get the better of them, until Jules threw a little funky riff up for everyone's consideration. Straight away the entire song came together, structure, lyrics, stabs, the lot - in about 5 minutes flat!
10. Dreamtime - This was the second of the songs on the album where Lorna's lyrics came first. A very sensitive song, it has the scope to mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Structuraly, the chords came from an evening Marc and Jules spent strumming acoustic guitars and drinking red wine - the slide melody being something that appeared out of thin air the first time the band learnt the song together.
11. Sugar - Originally just based on a very simple F# vamp, with a Led Zeppelin style coda bolted on, this only really came together at the recording sessions for this album. Jules guitar harmony in the middle ("an attempt to go prog for a bit... to out-Brian-May Brian May") was an unplanned moment that came together while recording the overdubs, and again in the context of the song is in huge contrast to Marc's fretwork over the coda. Lyrically - this song needs little description... listen to the song!
Click here to see some behind the scenes footage of us recording Sugar in the studio - it's a 10MB Windows Media video...
All photos © 2006 Phil North - click each to see a higher resolution version.
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