Day #4
Today we spent the day working on one of the songs that pre-dated the sessions as the bulk of it was assembled from bits that Neal & Steve worked on when they got together to meet and write a bit together in early 2010...
Although the majority of the song was already arranged, we inevitably added minor changes to the arrangement and parts, but also completely rewrote the song's chorus based on new approaches Casey sparked...
So far this is the only "epic" we've written (clocking in at around 10 minutes...OK, not "epic" by mine and Neal's standards, but pretty lengthy by most other "normal" band's standards!)
This one really brings to mind a bit of the sound and arrangement of Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son or Yes' Roundabout....but of course it's all US....
Day #5
We actually were able to bang out two songs today....both on the shorter, more poppy side...
(I may as well now dispell any notions that this is a full-blown "Prog" project, because that's not really the case...It really is a very "song-oriented" project...but of course with an emphesis on great musicianship, style diversity and inevitable proggy overtones...)
Anyways, the first song is something Casey had brough in which I LOVED...
Very Beatles/Queen/Jellyfish...TOTALLY up my alley....(but the funny thing is that people that don't really know me or my taste would never peg me as such a fan of psychedlic pop kind of stuff...in fact, at one point Casey was cracking up because he sees me as this long haired, tattooed, heavy metal guy...but I was totally excited to be playing a Ringo groove and singing 3 part harmonies!)
The 2nd song of the day was something Neal woke up with this morning and presented to us (yes, this project is filled with at least 3 gifted songwriters that can just bang out a song or idea within hours!)
Neal presented to us the verses and choruses he came up with and from there Steve created an instrumental bit and then we used a bridge that Casey had...and of course Dave, Peter and myself are making chord changes & arrangement suggestions all through the process, so even when 1 person brings a "song" in, by the time the 6 of us are done with it, it's truly become a collaborative effort....and it really does sound that way...you can hear a bit of all of our influence in every song we've written so far...
This latest one may be one of the most commercial-sounding songs I've ever done in my life, but it is QUALITY music folks!!! (for instance, fans of Kevin Gilbert's work are gonna love this project....)
I am truly enjoying how refreshing it has been making music with such talented musicians/artists as Neal, Steve, Dave & Casey...
...and it also is yet another notch in my belt of trying something new, as it doesn't sound anything like DT or Transatlantic or A7X or LTE or OSI...one of the most important goals in my career has been to always have an open-mind, an open-ear, try different things and work with artists I admire and respect...and this project is a home-run in helping me continue to achieve that goal in everyone of those areas!
MP
Day #6
Man, what another productive day!!!
Start off with a few cool riffs Steve showed us...pretty HEAVY (relatively speaking of course) and put together a really cool song that's totally upbeat and seriously groovin...
The initial arrangement had a chorus that Casey and I sang together and had a pretty cool Queens Of The Stone Age vibe and then broke into a really cool breakdown section in the middle where Casey went into a bit of a Bono meets Jim Morrison spoken section..
After laying down a demo version and taking a break, we were about to put the song to bed when Neal voiced a few concerns and we ended up completely rewriting the chorus and omitting the spoken section...once again, another example of 5 very creative minds (6, including peter Collins) really being able to bounce ideas, thoughts and concerns off of each other and come out with something that is the best for THE SONG...
We take a dinner break during which Peter entertains us with stories from his career, including some cool insight into the Rush albums he made...
After dinner, I suggest taking a look at a few songs Neal had that I really was in love with....but after much discussion, we all agreed that the project is really benefitting from us collaborating on everything and not using any "completed" songs, so instead we dig into the pile of ideas that Neal & Steve jammed on last year...
We stumble on a few progressions and melodies that were really beautiful and decide to work on them as we were on our 8th song and hadnt yet had anything that was "ballad-esque"...what ended up coming out a few hours later was an incredibly beautiful piece of music that in a perfect world would be a tremendous hit...
Casey and Neal collaborated on some absolutely inspired lyrics and Casey's voice on this song is so unbelievably emotional...he delivers the song with so much character and conviction that we were all REALLY moved when we sat in the control room listening to the playback...
Powerful stuff!
MP
