Work has gone underway on my debut album. Me and my Mike have been busy choosing, rewriting, and generally perfecting my songs.
We went to get the drums recorded at Wine Cellar Music Studios and had them played by the owner/resident drummer extraordinaire Ryan Stewart which was a great experience.
Right now I’m laying down the bass, guitar, synths, and sampled parts which is going to take a while considering we have 16 songs on the short list. Each one striving to be epic in production as well as in numbers of instruments and tracks.
I have the first finished track finished. It’s called “Like A Shooting Star” and features Mary-Lee Neron on the vocals.
This is not the album version (which will be darker sounding) but is more of a “pop” mix we did for the Radiostar national songwriting contest. Have a listen and see what you think!
In other news, in December I finished scoring the short film “The Light Of Family Burnam” which premiered at the Whistler Film Festival.
This is a touching piece of art and I recommend that everyone see it. The film was directed and written by Marshall Axani and produced by Doug Kerr both at Awkward Moment Productions. The script for this film which won the Motion Picture Production Industry Association Short Film Award tells the story of a boy planning his own funeral while his father tries to cope.
I thought I’d write something on my thought process behind my Hockey Night In Canada Theme.
My initial thoughts, when I heard about the contest was that it certainly had be a rock song, without a doubt. What kind of rock? Well I instantly thought of two of my favourite Canadian bands I like. Rush and Arcade Fire. Both bands have rather epic styles that would fit Hockey Night In Canada well.
I also knew that I did not want to do a vocal song with lyrics. First of all I don’t think any song with lyrics or vocals could possibly win. Why? Because I think that putting a voice and words to something that Canadians nationwide will be calling their new anthem makes it too easy to knock down. People will complain about the singer, some people won’t connect with the lyrics. With an instrumental piece the listener can hum along without having words define what they are feeling.
Now for the melody itself I went back to my days in high school and back then I had written a song which I had never put words to and had recorded a rough version of (well back then I thought it was pretty good). It was called Paradise (Bright Red Sky – hence the name of my hockey anthem). People had told me that the piece should be submitted to the Olympics because it really had that epic sport kind of feel to it and I knew that this was exactly the feel I wanted for this hockey theme. So I went back to the piece and totally re-recorded it and gave it a new outlook on life. I added new parts, and tweaked the melody.
What instruments to use? Well thinking of Neil Peart I added pounding drums and then heavy electric guitars doing power chords. For the melody the choice just had to be brass. I used trumpets for the lead and then trombones and french horns as harmonies. During the mixing process I had a struggle.
I wanted super strong drums, super strong guitars, and I wanted the melody to really come through. But when you turn up one then the others would feel too weak, so eventually I turned up everything which of course was the same as what I started with but just louder. So I figured since melody is king as that is what people will remember, in the end I kept the melody on top and with mastering I was actually able to make all the elements come out pretty decently. For the mixing and mastering of this song I referenced a track off of the latest Arcade Fire album Neon Bible. The track is “No Cars Go” and is really the best track on the album and features a full orchestra which is why I used it. If you haven’t heard this song, make sure you do.
And that’s a little bit about the process behind the theme.
As of last night I have uploaded a second version of my Hockey Night In Paradise to the hockey anthem site. I decided to cut the intro all together so it jumps right in and catches people attention. I also made the overall tempo a little bit faster just to make the theme slightly more upbeat.
My Hockey Night In Canada Theme is finished and up on the anthem challenge site! If you don’t know about this contest here is how it works. CBC chose not to renew the old Hockey Night In Canada Theme (CTV bought it) and now CBC is holding a contest to see who can write the next theme. The winner gets $100 000 and gets their song played during every game. As of now there are around 5500 entries from all across Canada so there is a huge amount of competition. I decided to go the epic orchestral rock route. The main melody is actually from a piece I composed about 6 years ago which I have totally revamped for this version. (I originally planned to get it to be the Olympic theme song when I first wrote it)
If you like it please follow this link to vote or comment on the official site. You will have to register but it won’t take more than a minute and you’ll be helping me impress the judges!
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