If somethings hard then it's usually worth doing, and this is especially true of the recording process. I can't say that it's been easy recording my new album 'City of Streets', it's been tough to say the least, but I can say that it has been rewarding if not a totally enjoyable experience. Although I'm only half way though the process, I've learnt so much that I already feel I'm better at my craft than I was when I began this journey. The recording in earnest is now finished, just a couple of acoustic guitars parts to redo, and I am now into the mixing stage. I stared the project just over a week ago when I flew my band out to Norway to the small town of Spydeberg, about 40 mins away from the capital city of Oslo. Velvet Recording was the studio in question, a fantastic place with an amazing sounding live room , with some great gear. The producer was Nick Terry, a very talented guy who I've been meaning to work with for a while and which the stars finally seemed to aligned with on this project. He's worked with some big names such as The Libertines, Ian Brown, McAlmont & Butler, and Klaxons, so I was really chuffed to have him onboard and to be working with him on my new album.
In time old tradition I don't think I really allowed enough time to get the job done in the studio. 12 songs in 9 days is a pretty tall order but somehow we managed to pull it off by really putting in the hours and sticking to a strong work ethic. There was not really a lot of partying mainly because taking on such a massive work load hungover would have made a hard job quite frankly impossible. There wasn't much to do in the town anyway with only one real bar within walking distance. We stayed in a flat next to the studio which meant we avoided any late starts and I didn't have to worry about sorting out accommodation on top of organising the studio. In terms of the sound we were looking to achieve, I had talked extensively with Nick about what records I was into, namely The Black Keys and Jack White, so we went into the project with a strong idea of what we were trying to achieve.
There was a lot of putting things through amps to dirty up the sound and we even ran the acoustic into a Tandburg (a Norwegian reel to reel machine) to get the sound we were looking for. All in all I was really happy with the results and the mixing stage is going well. If things go according to plan the release date is looking like mid March with a special launch party on the 31st of March at Jamboree in London. So keep your eyes peeled for more news as it happens...
