On The Go - 12.13.16

Hey Everyone

I am going to try to update this page at least once a week so keep checking in. I wanted to talk a little about the process of these songs. Between work, Franco and Gia there isn't a lot of time to get in writing so I've found you need to take advantage of it anywhere you can. For instance, the day that I hit my goal I was driving home from work and I started singing a melody in the car while stuck in traffic. I have Garageband on my phone so I opened it up and was able to figure out a couple of chords with the keyboard to fit. Once I got home, I was able to grab the guitar and knock out what the verse chords would be and put together a rough demo of the possible song. I called this one "Forever." That same night I was playing with the keyboard in GarageBand on my iPad while Franco was sleeping on my chest and came up with a cool little riff on the keyboard and was able to flesh out a verse, pre-chorus and chorus melody and I called this one "It's Alright." I recorded a rough version on my phone, singing over to me playing the keys (which I'm not good at by the way) and when I played it back I realized, somehow I had done this really cool drum noise. I still have no idea how I created it. I think it was just with my mouth but maybe I had a finger snap in there too? As we get a little closer to it being finished I'll share my initial idea of these sounds. 

A few days later I was officially funded so I sent Zach all the other songs and song ideas I thought would be for the album but I included the two new ideas as well. As it turns out, those are two of the three songs we are doing. It's always funny how that works. You think you know the way a project will turn out but you never know when songs are going to come out of nowhere. 

The third song we are recording is called "#7" right now. This is a song that I've been working on for at least a year. I record all my little guitar ideas or melodies in the Voice Memos on my phone so this one was recording #7 so when I sent it to Zach I just called it that so we could identify it. All of these song titles will most likely change as we go on with the process and I finalize the lyrics. Lyrics are always the last (and hardest) thing for me. But Zach and I know that these three songs have great melodies in place and that's why we were able to choose them as the three strongest songs to finish out this EP. 

Yesterday I received the first rough "It's Alright" from Zach. Tomorrow at 11am we are recording drums for this song so right now the track is pretty bare bones, but it's enough for the drummer to play his part. This time around on drums we are using Lee Levin. He's really well known in South Florida and has played on tracks for Barbara Streisand, Madonna, Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Nelly Furtado and most recently on the latest Barry Gibb record, who he's been touring with. So I think it's safe to say, the drums are in good hands. 

As I had mentioned before, a lot of this project is done over the internet ( gotta love technology) so Lee will be tracking the drums in his home studio and will be getting direction from Zach over the internet. Lee should be taking a video of his session, so I'll have something to share (hopefully next update.)

I am really excited with how this song is shaping up. The rough Zach sent sounds great and I know the drums will really add to it. We still need to add bass, more guitars, vocals and of course horns. I also in the last week or so have finally found a concept for this song so I've been working on lyrics. I'd say I have about 60% of them done, but I find myself constantly tweaking and re-working them. Hoping to have these locked soon so I can move on to the other two songs.