It took how long?

So the EP came out in 2018, then the live album in 2019, and now it’s taken till 2023 for the next album…why? How long can it really take? Well, quite a while really…

Ok so it’s more complicated than that. Did it take 4 years to make the new album? No. though it did take 3, or maybe just 1. It depends on where you start from.

If you’ve been reading these recent blog posts you might know that I wrote the album during lockdown. By that I mean the songs: the melodies, the structures, the skeletons if you like. Each one written within a week, with a few hours spent on it most days. So with 11 new songs, well that adds up. And here’s your first figure: 110 hours. That’s right 110 hours. What does that mean? I realised when working this out that we don’t tend t think of things in terms of hours much. Beyond the constraints of maybe one day. A film might be a couple of hours. A party might be 3 or 4 hours. But when it gets to hundreds of hours it starts to lose meaning. Well, to help you (and me) a bit, that’s 2 full working weeks. Even that is a bit deceptive though, as this was fit in between life, commitments, DIY, and the arrival of my first born! (a little context)

Ok so you’ve got some songs, lets make an album. Steady on! There’s a little more to it than that. I wanted this to be ‘right’. For the first time I have a band who can help me turn these songs into complete, produced recordings. So next up was involving them. Back at work by now, I’m now fitting this in-between a full-time job, and being a dad. We started on Zoom, later we met in person. Listening to what I’d thrown together, then honing it, sharing ideas. Over 2021, we worked through all 11 songs and got them ready for recording. Just another 74 hours clocked in.

The plunge. So, it’s time to start recording and to put our money where our mouths were. The first thing we did was book a studio and record the drums. January 2022, 3 straight days of recording. Each day we rocked up at 10am knowing we had to get through all the songs by the end. It was fun, exciting, tedious, tense at times but great. The team at the studio were brilliant and we came away with what we needed, studio recorded drums. Next up, all the rest! That shouldn’t take too long should it? My original plan actually had us marked for completion by July…Ha! Throw in a house move, a second child on the way and a race to decorate the house before his arrival and you’ve got a great mix for delay (delay, delay, delay). Squeezing in sessions in evenings, weekends, overnights, and even one after a party. All parts recorded and then sent off to the studio to mix and master it. The final masters were with me before Christmas 2022, then CD’s shipped in January 2023 (thanks to everyone who bought a CD and got early access and a full 12-page booklet). Now, with two singles launched, the album launches on the 4th August 2023.

So how long did it take? Well, the recording was completed in one year and clocked in at 147 hours. The whole process took 3 years and 331 hours (and I’m probably being a bit stingy on my counting). That’s over 40 working days, 4 times round all 10 seasons of friends, or 220 viewings of Bridget Jones’s Diary. Yeah, it’s quite a lot.

It took longer than I hoped, was harder than I expected and learnt a lot more along the way than I realised I would need to know. How long did it take? A long time.