Rewriting...

There are a great many relatively mundane aspects that go into managing a recording project on a daily basis.  For example... there are the mechanical aspects of preparing stems and lead sheets for the musicians, importing and exporting wave files into and from the DAW (digital audio workstation), evaluating and editing content, generating rough mixes as the project progresses.... none of which is particularly rewarding.  Matt Wallace (who produced our first album) once told me that once he's finished producing an album, he can literally never listen to it again.  I honestly get where he's coming from.

Every once in awhile, I get to interrupt these processes with something I truly enjoy.  That just occurred the last couple of days with the opening track ("A Different Kind of Weather") for this next album.  It's an expansive track, with an extended keyboard/effects intro and a lot of electronica interspersed throughout - and it is very high energy (clocking in at over 150 bpm).  The structure is intended to be reminiscent of ELO's "Secret Messages", from 1983.  The title itself is borrowed from a recording made by a band that was on the A&M label while I was there; I loved that title and decided to build my own song around it.

The melody for the song itself was, like most other songs I write, developed in my head while on a drive.  I can generally "hear" (in my mind) the chord structures that will apply to a new song, and eventually work it out on a keyboard after the melody has been solidified   That was the case with this song, and I developed the demo parts for the entire song structure some time ago.

However... in the case, something about this song just didn't sit right with me.  Because it's such a high energy song, and the melody is fairly dynamic, I wasn't as focused on the chord structure - and what I reflected in the demo just seemed a bit too basic/repetitive to me.  I'd been feeling that way for awhile, and had made a mental note that I'd eventually need to roll up my sleeves to fix it.

That's not the easiest exercise in the world, particularly when the demo parts have been completely developed - but this week was a sticking point, since it's the last song that I have for which the drums have already been recorded, and I needed to get something the both Robbie (on bass) and Niels (on guitars).  So this week was it.

For the first time in awhile, I was able to go up to my studio, and sit down at the workstation not to perform mundane tasks, but to actually engage in a creative endeavor.  And, it was awesome.  Hours flew by, but I finally came up with those more interesting chord progressions that I love listening to, and was able to modify the demo parts so that they properly fit.

Still a slight bit of cleanup to do, but... mission effectively accomplished.  Can't wait to share it...