Changing Trains

Everything has changed so much since I started writing this album. It's not too far off 4 years since I decided this is what I was going to do, being honest I knew well I wanted to write albums since I was 5 or 6 years old, it's just stupid it took me so long. Pete and Rob have both become fathers in the last 4 years, neil has moved to Thailand, we've met Hannah who has just fitted in perfectly and Dave has become a brilliant producer!!!!

All the years that I've spent playing guitar, writing songs and playing gigs have made me realise something important.... Technically I'm a shambles, I can't read music, I don't know the names of half the chords I play, I'm fairly sure some of them aren't even chords. I have no real technique. I could go on but on the flip side of this I now understand what I'm good at. Spending so much time in a studio makes you face up to everything, there's nowhere to hide. I think it could be an Irish thing but I almost feel bad saying I'm good at something, turns out I'm good at melodies, I've always been affected by them and the rhythm of a song is the first thing I feel.

Secondly it's the lyrics, I've always loved storytellers and songs with a standout melody with hard hitting lyrics are absolute perfection for me. I focus so much on lyrics, I need to say things in a way that has never been said before, words to me, are just so powerful. Imagine, with just two sentences you can destroy someone or make someone feel incredible, everyone has that ability. Words are invisible yet they affect every single part of who we are and what we do, that fascinates me. I knew I loved writing since I was a child, it's all coming together now, the melodies, the lyrics and I feel different, it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing.

I love being part of a team, I just love it. I've never been someone who thinks he knows it all, quite the opposite in fact, I love to learn from others, I'm fascinated by what other people know, what they're good at and how to put it all together to make something incredible. Music and soccer have been the two things that have taken most of my energy and focus all my life. They are my escape, I was first made Captain of a soccer team when I was 11 years old, I played for the Under 13's and although I wasn't technically the best player, I must have done something right. I'm nearly at the end of my competitive playing days but luckily I had the honour of being Captain for a lot of years at 3 different clubs. When it comes to music I see my role as something similar, everyone involved has a skill that the others don't, a skill that sets them apart yet they share something similar.

It's hard to organise everything but we're making good progress, the time frame is irrelevant at this stage. We're starting to get some really good feedback from some of the songs, It's different this time around, all the stuff we did when we were younger makes sense now. Experience I suppose they call it but what is experience? I'll tell you, when we were teenagers we won the biggest band competition in Limerick, yeah I thought it was just so easy, we'll get signed, we'll tour, we'll be famous, all good. Well that didn't happen but thank God!!! This time around it doesn't even cross my mind, it's the process, why didn't I see this before? Think about what you love, what you really want to do..... Now forget about the good times, the good days. You want to be a songwriter? Then forget about getting signed, forget about playing sell out concerts, forget about having a number one, basically forget about everything the X-Factor is telling you to aspire to. The reason is simple, you need to love the boring, bad days, when you figure that out you know what you should be doing. I absolutely love when I get the feeling in my stomach that I need to play guitar because I need to write a song. From that moment, to actually writing something, to sharing it with the lads, to recording it, the whole process is what I love, forget the afterwards, don't even think about the consequences, the process is everything, I am without doubt a writer and a decent Captain and now I'm going to bring it all together.

I think it's fair to say that nearly everyone I know is more realistic than me. I don't care, I'm not into realistic and it's time to be honest. I want to write the greatest album ever written, I assume I'll fail but I can't think of anything I'd rather fail at. Jesus, you can fail at anything, why not fail trying to do something incredible?? With the album practically complete I can say this..... It's the best thing I've ever written, it's way better than I expected when I started and I usually hate what I write!! Is it the greatest album ever written? I don't care... I'm in love with the process, if it's not the greatest album ever written then so what, I'm not finished writing albums yet.... It's only over when you give up... and I don't give up!

And finally we've completely finished some songs!!! It's been a brilliant journey so far and since the last blog, so much has happened. Neil was home for a few weeks and we got some excellent recording sessions done and a bit of boozing, obviously!! Some of the songs sound so different now, far better than I was expecting so I suppose taking our time has really paid off!

The final piece of the jigsaw was always going to be the sticky part, with all the music done it's all down to the vocals. The idea was to have male and female vocals in the songs as the songs are telling stories that need that dynamic. Hannah came into the studio in January and since we'd never had female vocals before we weren't sure if it would work at all. Well it didn't take long to find out, we chatted about some of the songs and we recorded her on part of the song "Won't let you down". Hannah left the studio and myself and Dave just sat there and looked at each other without saying a word. I think we both had a realization about what we just heard. Dave was just smiling because, since he's the producer he knows her voice is just perfect, not just for this song but she'd probably sound amazing on all of them!!

I'm smiling too but for different reasons, yip she sounds brilliant but the problem is she's kinda too good to just do backing vocals, she'd have to be a main vocalist!! Yeah, that means I'd have to slightly change the view point from which the songs were written, I won't have to completely re-write them but I'll definitely have to think of them from a different angle. Two problems with this, firstly it means finishing the songs is going to take longer again and secondly, will she even want to do main vocals on the songs??? Now that we know how good she sounds and the extra dynamic the female vocal adds, it just wouldn't sound the same without her!

A few sessions later and everything just sounds better and better, we're getting through the songs one by one and paying particular attention to harmonies and cross harmonies and as many melodies as possible. I've never enjoyed writing as much, it's all coming to life at long last. Hannah is the now the main vocalist and myself and Neil are adding backing vocals in most songs, the dynamic is just perfect. This whole thing is a million miles away from what I was planning to do at the start, the idea of just me and my acoustic doing a solo album is a distant memory! So now we actually have some songs ready, we're deciding which ones to release first. Our plan is to do a promo video, Peter has a lot of video footage of us in the studio so we're going to take snippets of some of the songs and put them with the footage. We're then going to properly release a song or two then follow it up with the release of the full album!!! I can't wait.. after all the effort and hard work the finishing line is in sight... Tunes are on the way!!!! 

Trying to organize the release is proving tricky enough. It's the timing of it more than anything, trying to figure out when would suit everyone best. Neil is hoping to be home for a couple of months, maybe in May - June so if we could be ready to go then it would make most sense. Upstairs in Dolans would be the perfect venue for an album launch but we're going to have to book it soon enough, we also want to allow enough time to release a couple of songs before the launch so people will actually be aware that we exist!!

Garth Brooks has just sold around a billion tickets for his Croke Park concerts, mad stuff altogether. If we can get 60 or 70 people to our launch in Dolans we'll be a happy bunch. We could book the warehouse but that's got a capacity of around 400 so it's risky. Now, I'm really starting to think beyond the recording and what we're going to do afterwards, I have to take it one step at a time. Once we book a date for the launch we can work backwards and think about how we're going to promote it and basically spread the word. I have a chat with a friend of mine, Kieran O'Brien who knows his music and media stuff so I have a basic plan in my head now and a bit of help!

Rob is wise in the ways of iTunes and the like, he's dealt with them before. We're definitely going to release a couple of singles and have the full album on iTunes and all the online places, I don't expect that we'll sell that many but it's more about being professional and taking ourselves seriously. We've always taken our songs seriously but have never really pushed it that much. I could decide to just put the songs and the album up for free download but that's not the message I want to send out anymore. I've paid out for studio time, with a lot of help from my brothers and extra hours at work and still have to get it mixed and mastered but it sounds and feels so professional. I know if I'm going to write a follow up album I'm going to follow a similar process so I need a head start. In my head I have to make the leap, we're a professional recording band now so we have to start acting like one. If we can get between 50-100 people to download the album, sell a few singles and sell out a few gigs then we've got a good start for next years recording!!

Yeah I'm already planning the next one, I'd like to promote this album as much as possible for around a year, see what happens in the year but always preparing to record again. Again this is all up to us, we've got no record company behind us, no management company, no PR company, don't even have a manager or a promoter so even with a good album I have no idea how the hell we're ever going to get heard!! Pete likes his films and stuff. He's written and produced his own short films and is fairly nifty on the auld cameras, obviously then he's the man to shoot a couple of music videos for us. We chat a lot about the stories of the songs and how best to get the ideas across. I think the videos are going to be excellent, Pete is just brilliant at all this. We talk about doing a video for "Gathering the Sunlight", I really like this song and the story, Pete plays ukulele on this song and it sounds perfect, he understands it all and his ideas for the video are going to work perfectly, this could be our first release!!

The search for a female vocalist continues, since it's January 2014 and we're about to start recording final vocals, we have to make a decision if we're going to keep looking or just do without any female vocals at all. I love vocals, lots of vocals, I love coming up with melodies that blend with a main melody, a story behind a story, something unexpected or just something simple. Neil's got a class voice and that's going to add a different dimension to the songs anyway so not a disaster if we end up doing all the vocals ourselves.

There's a girl called Hannah coming in today for an hour or two to do some vocals and if she doesn't work out we'll probably just end our search, we've got to finish this thing soon. It's the first week of a new year and hopefully a good year. We've seen Hannah play live and heard her recorded too. The problem though is that yeah, she's got a good voice but will it work on these songs?? 

So it's now summer 2013, progress seems slow enough but in every session we record something that makes it worthwhile and keeps us looking forward to the next one. We're not recording one song at a time, we're recording all the drums and bass first, then we'll record the guitars, then the other instruments, then the vocals. The problem with recording this way is we don't even have one finished song after months in the studio, that's frustrating!!

Some people say "Everything happens for a reason", the implication is that it's all part of a bigger plan. I find that the most depressing thought I could possibly have. If your life is mapped out for you then there's no point really is there? I believe you are responsible for your own actions, you make your own luck, you decide your own life. This is the theme for the song "Let me Breathe", this is Dave's favourite song on the album, it's edgy but again it's honest, there's a lot in this song and it will sound epic if we can get it right. I'm not a fan of Religion, I'd much rather people were taught from a very early age to try and figure things out for themselves. By a million miles, the most important journey you'll ever go on is to find out who you are, you simply can never be happy, you can't ever really be at peace until you figure out who you are and you just can't be told what to believe or what to think. Lets' be honest, if you don't know right from wrong it's not Religion you're lacking!!

Peter puts down ukulele and harmonium on some of the songs, they sound excellent and they add something different. Still though, there's something missing in some songs, a violin would be perfect but we don't know a violin player. Dave knows a violin player called Podge, he plays with a band called Tractor Bomb, ahhhhh I remember now, I saw them play before and even remember that I had a quick chat with the violinist afterwards!! Dave gets in touch with him and he agrees to play on the album, we're delighted, this fella is excellent. We email him on a few songs and let him decide what he thinks would work well. He absolutely nails it, the violin gives another dimension to the album, this is really what I had in my head, it's starting to sound the way I feel.

So recording the music is going really, really well, we know what songs we're putting on it and I'm delighted with how it's written. I've managed to write the full album as one story, the album follows the roller coaster lives of a genuine, everyday couple as they struggle through modern life. Some of the lyrics are dark and hard hitting, they really hit home with me so I know other people will feel it too. Another problem though, we still don't have a female vocalist and the story doesn't work without one... the album doesn't work without one. To give some more context to the depth I've gone into for this album, I'm now starting to write and scribble notes on my fifth refill pad. I'm an old school pen and paper kind of guy, after all the effort I've put in and all the effort the lads have put in, there's no way we're falling at this hurdle.... She's out there and we'll find her..  

As far as the album goes, 2013 was definitely the year we were going to make a move. Yeah, that didn't happen!! Originally I assumed this whole thing would take 6 months, it has been a lot longer but once Dave has recorded the live drums then we're finished and good to go surely? We book into the Music Hub Studios in Limerick and the plan is we'll do maybe three sessions. As soon as the first session is over we have to face the grim truth, the sound in there is incredible, not only do we have to do all the drums live but honestly, we have to do the whole thing again from scratch in that studio. Inside I'm childishly giddy with excitement because I know in this environment, in this studio, we can get the album sounding way more professional than anything we've done so far. That feeling fades very quickly once it dawns on me that firstly, our budget is actually zero and secondly, even if money wasn't an issue, starting again is going to be mentally very tough. My brain needs a break, I can't keep thinking about this thing all the time. I reckon to record this album we'd need four full weeks in a studio. Four full weeks, six days a week, since we don't have any money the only way we can make it happen is by booking in for six hours every three weeks. It's still very hard to raise the funds but worse again it's going to take months and months at this rate, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

I've decided on which songs are definitely going on the album, for me this is where things get interesting. Once I have the songs in the exact order I want them they seem to scream at me. It's so obvious that these songs, in this order are telling a story, the whole album is one continuous story!! I was struggling with certain parts of some songs, unsure of how to finish them because I felt that they were missing something. Now that I understand the story everything just falls into place and it feels perfect. We talk a lot about the songs, it's important to develop our sound but I don't want the same formula for every song, I'd get too bored too quickly. Every songs needs to be different but also needs to fit into the overall story without seeming out of place, how the hell do we do that?? The writer in me is absolutely tingling with excitement at the thought of writing the album as one story, linking it all together, the challenge is too enticing to shy away from.

Once again everything seems to be falling into place but then another hurdle. If we want to make every song unique and fresh we're going to need more than just the usual guitars, bass and drums. We need to try different instruments, maybe find other musicians, it's not just that though, the way the story of the album is unfolding it becomes obvious to all of us that we need a female vocalist, the story is all about a couple, it has to be. It seems like there's never ending complications, it keeps developing, keeps growing, the closer we get the further away it seems. I could get a bit disheartened at this stage but I look at it this way, it doesn't matter how long it takes, that time is going to pass anyway, we'll get there. I can hear the final album in my head so clearly now, time means nothing.

Things are really starting to come together and take shape now. An album can only really ever be as good as the people involved, I know well how good the lads are. Pete has released a solo album of his own and is currently working on his second one, I've heard some of the songs and even though I'm not that into folk music I really love some of his tunes. Dave is a brilliant drummer, he lives and breathes music, his attention to detail and dedication are incredible. Rob is coming up with some brilliant bass lines and when he emails me his ideas I just smile, he just gets it. We first met Rob 15 years ago, we needed a bass player and put a poster up in a local music shop, Rob was the only one who replied, thank God. Rob thinks like us, he's totally and absolutely dedicated to writing and coming up with original music, a perfect fit. Neil is one of my favorite musicians, I might be biased because we've been best friends for so long but he knows what I'm all about and adds so many subtle but brilliant touches to the songs. Neil wrote one of my favorite ever songs "So far away", to be honest I can think of songs we wrote when we were teenagers that I still sing to myself!! Of course, me being me I never actually tell the lads I think they're decent, not a hope, we just constantly insult each other instead, that's a lot more fun!!

Now since everything seems to be in place I suppose I should talk about why I write songs or why I wanted to write these songs. Genuinely I don't know, everything would be so much easier if I didn't feel the need. I find myself in a bit of a weird situation, in the mornings I get up and go to work, I make windows for a living, I've been doing that for 16 years now. In my head i'm thinking about the songs, the stories, the melodies, constantly trying to make them perfect. I think about my life a lot, mainly the things I could have done, deep down I'm just trying to summon up the courage to definitely go through with this because the truth is at the moment it's all just a dream that's way out of my reach. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to be famous or anything, I really like my job, I like the lads I work with and I'm good at what I do. I don't understand people who just want to be famous, you see them on these TV shows saying they want to sell millions of albums and sell out concerts across the world. They say things like, they've dreamed about it their whole lives, even though they're usually around 19 years old, none of them get it, none of them even slightly get it. No one should ever be famous just because they want to be, you should only be famous because you have to be, you should only gain honour and recognition because you've done something extraordinary. People get labelled as artists and musicians these days when they can't play an instrument, create a melody or even write a meaningful lyric.

My passion for writing songs comes from somewhere different and my reasons are the total opposite. I'll never forget where I was and how I felt when I first heard certain albums, the reason is simple, they spoke to me. You can imagine if you were sitting at home and all of a sudden a voice out of nowhere whispered something incredibly profound in your ear, believe me you'd never forget that moment. I don't believe in wise old ghosts but the affect is similar, the shivers down the spine, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck etc That's what I feel driven to write, something that makes me feel that way. There's no amount of album sales, no amount of sell out concerts that could ever replicate that feeling and all I know is I won't stop until I get it right.

So now it's early 2012 and I've been writing this thing for 15 months. My original idea was just to write an acoustic album, just me and my guitar telling my stories. I've been recording in Peter's home studio and I think we have around 20 songs done, they're flying around in my head every single minute of every single day, I can't figure out which ones to drop. A couple of months ago another good friend of mine, Dave, offered to put drums on the songs for me, his attic is converted into a studio and he's back from London where he was in drum college, obviously I said yeah, this could be cool!!!

What I didn't realize is that Dave is an absolute perfectionist, he programs the drum tracks and to me it sounds amazing.. To Dave it's not good enough, he wants to record them all live. If he wants to go to all that effort he must like the songs I reckon. I'm absolutely loving spending time with the lads working on music but here's the problem, Neil lives in Thailand now, Rob lives in Kerry. This has evolved from an acoustic album to a full-on band thing. I'm so happy the lads want to help and be part of this but the only way we can make this work is by emailing each other tracks and ideas, this makes progress very slow.

Since we're now recording a full band album I start thinking of what we're going to call ourselves and also for that matter, what am I going to call the album??? This Turns out to be very obvious.. The band name will be "Changing Trains", I love the imagery of standing on a platform and changing trains. To me it's symbolic of life, it's just one big journey and sometimes you just decide or sometimes something happens that make you change direction. All journeys are into the unknown no matter how many plans you make, that's what keeps things interesting. The name of the album will be "Theory of Everything", this comes from my love of Physics. The weird thing is I'd no interest in the subject when I was at school. I always think very deeply about everything and in my twenties I developed a passion for Theoretical Physics. I didn't have the mathematical foundation to really get into it but I could understand the theories perfectly well. I couldn't afford to go to college and study Physics full time but I was happy reading books and studying the subject as a hobby, fascinating stuff indeed!! The Holy Grail of physics is to find a "Theory of Everything", a Grand Unified Theory that explains everything in the Universe. I'd love to be able to come up with a theory of everything but I can't unify Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity so by writing an album as honestly as possible, from my perspective I am in my own way coming up with my own "Theory of Everything". The name of the album means so much to me and drives me to make the songs worthy of the title. I still have absolutely no idea how the hell we're going to play live, after a year and a half working on this we haven't all even been in the same room once, the obstacles are everywhere!!