Pick up a gig as a producer is how I’m getting the new year kicked off with a bang. Though I actually got a really great bang of a kick-off this year as I rang it in in Sydney Australia.
https://vine.co/v/OwjzaAwQMVj/embed
As I freeze frame the video above from Sydney, I can see a pretty brunette looking at me shooting the crowd. Funny what you catch after the fact. The other fun thing is that its the first video I’ve put online that actually had a slightly viral take. Over 234,000 views in less than 12 hours. I now understand the desire to have big numbers.
Beyond the video, I’m sitting down to be the producer for a Utah metal band known as The Book. Chances are you’re asking yourself, why the hell would a pop/rock artist be producing a Utah metal band. One that’s slightly thrashy at that. The answer is: The lead guitarist was my first rock guitar teacher. I wanted to give back to the man that got me started down the road to musical amazingness.
There was one stipulation to them that I mentioned prior to starting the process. They had to be open and willing to allow me to have them change anything without a fight. No, I’m not going to make them do a pop song. Instead I had them play me what they thought were their 4 best songs and I chose the one that I felt had the most potential.
Act one: After getting the demo I chopped up the arrangement so that it would make more sense.
Scene One: Recording the drums. That was an adventure to say the least.
Scene Two: Editing drums.
Scene Three: Recording Guitars part one.
So far no issues with the process. Phrase that made me laugh the most so far, “I worked my ass off.” I merely responded with a chuckle and a quick quip stating the work hasn’t even begun yet.
At the studio for recording the drums the engineer mentioned that he’d never witnessed a producer that actually had the balls to tell a band or band member what to do in the recording process. I let him know that the band agreed to allow me to push them in the appropriate direction as needed to get the best possible result. Besides, the ideal job of a music producer is to let band know when something isn’t working and they can’t hear it.
So far no arguments and only a lot of hey that’s turning out really cool comments.
Dragging an 80s style metal band into 2015 is certainly going to be an adventure for me as a producer. Thrash Metal will never be the same after this gets dressed up and unleashed on the world.
The saga will continue.
In the matter of getting the talent out and into the world, I have a little news about something I’ve done recently. I was asked to sing on a game soundtrack. I can’t tell you the name of the game, if I did, I’d have to kill you, then they’d kill me. Very James Bond 007 type of stuff. I can say it’s a game out of Japan and it’s the type known as Pachinko. Though I’ve never see a Pachinko game, I can say Pachinko games am I. Or at least my voice is.
Oddly enough I’m getting known for doing vocals for games in that part of the world. It’s interesting. It’s fun. It can also be rough on the voice.
The amazing march of technology allows the composers in Japan to Skype in to my studio. Where they can ask, watch, listen, and request for things as we’re recording the tracks. Going international thanks to video chatting!
I will say the music for this game is a bit heavier than most of the music I’m known for. Plus it’s very much in the heavy video game style of borderline metal mixed with dub.
When I’m allowed to give out the name of the game, I’ll happily post an update. Speaking of which, there is another game that I sang on a while back where I’m due to be getting the CD of the music very soon. When I get it in big hands, I’ll post about that one.