How NOT to make an album

Over the last few years we've been threatening to make a new album without much conviction; with an almost nonchalant 'mañana' attitude, or 'dreckly' as we say in Cornwall, which translates as: an unspecified time in the future. Which is wonderfully vague. It's almost become one of those things you really should do but never get round to; like spend more time with family, or back up your computer files, or dust the house. As though merely by saying them then that's somehow enough. 

  
 "You know what, we really should make a new album!"

 "Yeah, we should!"

 "Cool."

 "Yeah sweet."

And that's that, another year passes by with the same songs opening the same doors, with another tour selling the same album to fans that already have it and buy it again out of pity.

 "You know what, we never did make that new album?"

 "No we didn't, did we?"

 "We really must do it!"

 "Yeah we must!"

And that's that, another year passes by with the only thing to change being the 

musicians that play those same songs. And perhaps the very fact we're playing

the same material is the deep underlying problem here; for you can't make a new album unless you have new songs right? Cracked it Einstein! For it's hardly the other way round; you can't write new songs unless you've got a new album for them to go in! We've been together 10 years, in the first 5 years we made 2 albums and an EP, in the second 5 years we made sweet diddly squat. Of course there are new songs, peppered in sporadically, but it's hard, we're a band that

live 100's of miles apart, rehearsals are few and far between and usually happen on the day of a gig, sometimes even in the sound check itself. Occasionally before one of our European tours we might cram into a friends freezing warehouse in the armpit of the city and play through the set, and someone might venture a new song, and we'll thrash it out and all look incredibly eager and pleased with ourselves but then when it comes to it, up there under the lights, with the hungry fans grinning over their pints and talking animatedly at 5 times the normal volume, that new song bottles it; keels over like a rich tea biscuit in a cup of tea. Of course there's the other side of the coin; up there under the lamplight, in a house concert full of people as silent as stones, rows and rows of expectant faces with eyes closed ready for the next one, and we glance at the setlist and it says NEW SONG and we all look at each other as though we've seen a ghost, we're literally scared of it; the bass player turns away, the drummer's gone pale, we can't possible play it here, it's far too concentrated, all of it's rawness will be exposed in this pin-drop arena! And so another year passes by...

... until now, the weirdest year of our lives; lockdown, a global pandemic played out backwards, with us open to the elements when it really mattered and clad in facemarks now it's easing. Led by the most confusing ever-changing rules; go to work but don't go to work, stay at home unless you can't stay at home, only go the pub if you can't get shitfaced in the house. In these crazy times, with us scattered across Europe like roaches in daylight, the conversation somehow started up again...
  
 "You know what, it might be an idea to make that album?"
 "I think you might be right"
 "I reckon we should!"
 "It seems the perfect time"

We can't physically see each other, have no money in the kitty, no gigs on the horizon, no new songs to speak of, we can't agree on where to make it, who to make it with, why we're even making it, and what it even is? Sounds perfect hey? But it seems to be happening, this time the conversation isn't being politely put to the bottom of the pile, it's being brought up again and again and again, and not even by us; you, our fans, have been reaching out to us and in some cases, even offering rewards. Almost like you've come to the end of your tethers, perhaps you've bought the last album 3 times out of pity and you can't face buying another one, you don't even have a CD player after all. And largely when you talk, we listen. All of our best adventures have been madcap pilgrimages to find you guys, and long may it continue.

And so, ok then, how? Good question. Our first EP was fairly simple, we'd just begun, we were hopelessly devoted, we had 4 songs to our name and saved up some pocket money to record them. This record has long since gone out of circulation which is a good thing as it wasn't brilliant and one year later we were ready to make a full album anyway; The Sweet Release. We did it in our hometown, in a studio, the only one down here that's any good. We borrowed money that we're still paying back today and in the end we released a fairly decent record I'd say. A good reflection of who we were and what we were doing back then. The songs was well honed and had gained some popularity on the circuit. 2 years later, after we'd moved to Bristol, expanded our numbers and got swayed by a big producer, we crowd-funded an absolute fortune and drove off into the hills of Wales to record Haul Away in an old shooting lodge in the middle of winter. That time, a little like now, we didn't really have any new songs, so we wrote them in the weeks leading up, and in the end we released a fairly average record; good tunes not properly formed, well produced though they were, it wasn't a real reflection of who we were and it didn't take us to the places we thought it would. I am aware this could be a cause for some contention; there are many people who much prefer the 2nd record, and that's brilliant; in my opinion there were flaws on the pair of them and I'm confident the 3rd one will see the best of both worlds.

And so we started writing, all in different towns, in different countries and through this long lockdown we shared our songs, and some of them stood alone, some of them merged together, some of them politely stepped aside. Only now as we tiptoe towards some normality, with the lucky few of us who aren't bound by borders, able to play together finally in the safety of the garden. It's been a bumpy road and though the surface is starting to even out a little (there is even talk of a gig!), there'll likely be more potholes ahead, perhaps even bigger than the ones we've faced. But the important thing is we're working towards something for the first time in 5 years; it's almost like starting again, our musical tastes are much different now, and they differ from each other, too, massively, and so finding a through line is going to be tricky. And we don't even really know who's in the band anymore? But albums are unique, they stand alone, we can call on old faces to come back in and haunt them with their sweet notes even if they never play them live, and that's the beauty of it.

And there's no time frame on it. It's not an exact science. We have no money and none in the pipeline and our decade year could well sail by without a single gig, but we are doing this, somehow, somewhere along the line something changed, we stopped thinking that we SHOULD make it and realised instead that we WANTED to make it.