After recording this song "Leaving The Rock", I invited the guys into a band for this project, rather than be session musos for it. So, the credits are now "Mars Express", not by Danny Woodman. Credit where it's due sorta thang.
Dave Leslie and I had developed a few songs together for this project, but with Covid restrictions eased - and with enough coin in my pocket, we went into the studio to develop a little kernel of an idea that I had, while just messing around for a day. It was Dave Leslie, David Carr (studio owner) and myself, Tim had a health scare that left him for a while as "the boy in the bubble" and had to isolate for a few months and Thomm notified us that he had contracted Covid a few days beforehand.
So, I sent this motorbike concept to DL the night before we went into the studio.
So, we are in the studio and DL plays this to me. We can see pt3 of the song now, it has hints of early sci fi films in it :)
For whatever reason, I can't embed this video, so here is a link. DL's concept
We don't have our (covid affected) drummer. But, DL is proficient and to get the ball rolling, we lay down the da da da da da of the motorbike concept. We discussed doing a slow build and getting it loud towards the end to build tension, then track the guitar riff and the basis of PT1 is done (kept the drums and guitar in the final mix).
For a sense of what we would do, we layed down a pattern on a drum machine and DL did pt 2 on his eeeeeelectric geeeeetar, then pulled out the acoustic for part 3, plus the addition of some "spacy, sci fi" keyboard for part 3 (which is in the final mix alongside Tims tracks).
And my photojournalism fails us as I never think to do it... But I do have this, which was when DL tortured his guitar for 20 minutes to give us some sound effects, assisted by David Carr (studio owner and sound engineer). You hear it in the take off part (with keys effect and my running my palm down the fretboard of a bass) and 2 bits of it in the middle of part 2 around "This things powers so obscene".
After this studio day, I wrote the lyrics and we put together a guide track.
I had Thomm come in to the studio for 2 x days to lay down drums to several songs, being forgetful about keeping a photo record... this is the only photo that I have of him for these 2 sessions on my phone.
DL joined us on day 2. So Thomm did the drums for pt3, then DL joined him and they tracked guitar for pt 2. Some live tracking rather than to click, as we needed to "change gears" several times, so timing nuances and a sense of energy and power.
My vox weren't up to this song, I knew what I wanted to do but it was rough. I used the services of the awesome Janine Maunders - who helped me work through vocal techniques, a "you can do this Dan" vibe and fearless critique to show me how to get more out of what I had. I only took baby steps on the singing lessons/production with her and had to stop due to coinage issues.
I retracked vox at home to a rough mix by DC (David Carr, the engineer) and the boy in the bubble - errr Tim, dialed in from home (did his tracks at home).
So off to the studio for some mixing sessions by the tune whisperer, the twiddler of dials, the sonic guru from "The Patch" (his Towns name is cooler than mine) and it was time to talk to Raghnalltuathai about another video.
Legend that this video maker is, he captured the essence of what I wanted to portray :)
And that concludes LTR.
We've got the stuff fully recorded for a few songs, just saving up some coin to hit the studio again for mixing. Onwards and upwards!