Wednesday 28th October 2009
So we’re on the home stretch, is it supposed to be easy or tough? There are different schools of thought I think. We have two songs now that seem to need tightening up, certainly in comparison to the others. From my perspective they possibly need new melodies, which in turn will mean new lyrics. This scares the crap out of me because when time is of the essence, the fear is you’ll just settle for something/anything to get it done. I love the boys but often they’ll go with my opinion on vocals, even though what I really need is an objective ear to confirm my own thoughts when a melody just isn’t strong enough. If I know it’s good, I don’t ask for an opinion, so in essence, I’ve answered my own question as soon as I’ve decided to ask it.
Happy Ever Afters…
I’m in good form, really happy. I mean just today, this won’t be an ongoing thing don’t worry. But I’ve always said it- when things are moving in the right direction, everything else falls into place and the small issues cease to matter. It’s freaking the others out a bit and I guess this highlights how I usually behave (note to self). But you know, although it worries me to ever feel relaxed (free floating anxiety I think it’s called), I really believe that we have some great songs lined up for this album. Not two or three, but at least eight or nine of them are, to my mind, exceptionally good. Now (and here’s the real me kicking in), we don’t have anything until the final product is presented, and what happens over the next few weeks will tell all. We’re really hoping that Andreas, our producer, manages to take the strong melodies and musical hooks and mould them into something even more unique than what we’ve presented to him. It’s imperative that we don’t sound like anyone except royseven.
Thursday 29th October 2009
Exploitation….
Prior to our manager leaving, we sat down and had a chat about publishing. Our current publishing deal expires next year and we don’t want to renew it. We know we’ll be put under pressure to extend it, as the advance will surely be needed, but we’ve decided against that. There was very little exploitation of our first album by the publishers, so it’s not worth giving away a sizeable portion of our income for zero return. We’ve no proof or faith that they’ll bother their holes to sell songs from the next album either and given that we’ve six band members, our earnings are small enough, so we need to maximize potential income not continue to divide it up between various slack agencies. We’re meeting with IMRO next week to get a complete overview of the publishing/royalties process as we need to arm ourselves with information. It’s time we stepped up and became better businessmen this time around. With album one, we just jumped on board, naïve and eager, but it resulted in minimal returns. Minimal is in fact over-stating it. So, we’re taking charge this time and it feels great!
Home movies, but not the good kind…
Whilst we’re all outgoing chaps, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get the guys to record a video message that would let people know what’s going on in the royseven camp. I didn’t want to do it alone as we’re a band and I don’t like the idea of the singer doing all the pr work. It disenfranchises the other members. So, I wrote out a mini script giving each member a line to say and told them that our manager had requested it without delay. A small fib, but it worked. Well, by worked, I mean they all fell into line and agreed to do it. We had to do a second take as I screwed up my first attempt at a German sign off. Neither video is Oscar worthy but it’s the start of a series we’ll be making so it’s good to get the first one done on home soil.
The other thing we have to sort is out our styling collage. Just like our publishing, we need to take hold of our branding, our image, and we have to be very clever about it. The best way to do it is allow every one to choose styles they’d happily wear, throw the ideas onto one board and get a stylist to pull it together from there. We have until next week to get it done, so our manager says…ahem…
Friday 30th October 2009
60bpm Sinus Rhythm
I’ve been having chest pains, dizziness, and unusual heart sensations. Not all the time, just on and off, but worse of late. I’ve to go for tests next week before we depart for Hamburg. They involve wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours. I don’t really want to fall ill in another country (especially when working on the album), although, now that I think about it, the health service is far superior there, so it would probably be preferable to Ireland. Anyway, I’m not actually concerned as it’s undoubtedly nothing serious but this little tit bit of information has taken one hundred and eight words- bonus! ϑ
Our Last Rehearsal before Hamburg
We’ve spent the last three days working on the two songs we felt were incomplete. The first actually fell together quickly, I never liked the original melody and I found a superior alternative on my first attempt. I have to write some relevant lyrics for it but I’ve a week to do it, which should be fine. I think this song is vastly improved now.
The second has been a complete nightmare. It seems we all have completely different directions in our minds for it. The perverse “problem” is that the MD of the label loves the chorus, so we have to leave that as it is. This means we have to alter the verses to sit with the chorus whereas usually you’re stuck looking for a good chorus not the other way around! So we’ve tried nigh on ten different arrangements for the verse and none of them worked. Last night, I sent everyone home with a rare homework assignment, to unlock the mystery of the elusive verse.
This morning, an amalgamation of ideas from a few different members seemed to do the trick, and we arrived at something more cohesive than anything we’ve had before. I just hope we didn’t settle for something because we’ve run out of time.
We whittled away the remaining minutes of our final session by playing cover versions. It was a nice way to round off our last rehearsal, a final sign off to two years of work, preparation, highs and lows, hopes, and fears.
When we return to this room, everything will have changed.
Here’s to album two.
- PAUL WALSH - ROYSEVEN
