We’re coming up on a new release next week (April 3rd!), and since it’s been a long time since we’ve released new material, I thought it would be cool to highlight some of the things Brendan and I have released in the past.
The last track we put out was called “Shadows,” and it was originally written in a flurry of new songs that I wrote after we released Alibi.
Some friends and I have a group that we put together many years ago that is very creatively called “Songwriting Club.” It’s basically a support group and when we schedule meetups, it provides a deadline to finish up a song so that we can bring something to show everybody else. I find it’s been extremely helpful for me, as every song evolution for me has a “difficult middle” that occurs after the exciting beginning. It’s basically the part of the songwriting process that is not so much inspiration, but work. Though, of course it involves creativity because in essence it is problem-solving. What lyrics fit in this passage? How can I make this part of the song more exciting? What will the transition be to get into the chorus? Sometimes these problems are easier to answer than others, but for me, without a deadline, that is often the time when the risk is great that I will just give up on a song and move on to the next exciting new idea. I find it difficult to pick up a song idea that is old, so many times these abandoned songs are never realized. I have hundreds of them, honestly, after writing songs for the past 25 years of my life. Anyway, Songwriting Club has been a lifesaver for me to get songs to a completed demo state and most of the completed music you’ve heard that I’ve written has come about through that process.
“Shadows” was one of those songs. The original demo was conceived and quickly completed for a meetup with Songwriting Club in 2012. I wanted to get right back into writing new songs for the next Fast Arrow recording. Unfortunately, because of the life circumstances of being a musician with a day job, and Brendan also being a recording engineer on top of that, the pace that Fast Arrow was working at slowed down dramatically. It wasn’t until 2015 that we were able to record and release “Shadows.” We’d been listening to a ton of different music in those three years, especially bands like Yellow Magic Orchestra and Japan (Tin Drum). We knew that we wanted to take things into a more edgy, experimental direction with the new Fast Arrow material. Brendan’s work as a part-time recording engineer was also paying off in a huge advance in his talent and more of an accumulation of awesome studio gear. So “Shadows” is really a studio song, more than anything on Alibi. The crazy vocal effects were achieved by a really cool digital 80’s unit called an H3000 Harmonizer by Eventide.
We started recording a few more of the songs I wrote in 2012 at this point, too, and one of them is the song that we recently finished and are releasing next week, “Silent Times.” For now, take a listen to our last release, “Shadows,” and if you like it, please add it to your playlists, play it for your friends, at work, etc. Thanks so much for your support.
