This is very exciting for me.
Not just because I’m getting to make solo album number 4, but also because of the way it’s being made this time…that is to say, all in one go!
My first 3 solo releases dating back to 2013 were somewhat piecemeal in terms of how the recordings came together. Sessions were spread out over months-even years-to complete a project. The end result was always satisfying, but I did always wonder how it would be if I started and finished an album project in ONE studio with ONE producer in ONE decent chunk of continuous time
Now I’m wondering no more. At the start of August, I decamped to Sonic One Studios near Llanelli to commence sessions with brilliant producer Tim Hamill on what will become “Ian Danter Goes Forth”. Tim was always going to be the guy and Sonic One was always going to be the venue. He was the man who pulled all the sessions I’d done for the Rule Of Three album and made it sound fantastic and I promised him there and then I would use his place exclusively if I ever made another album. So there.
I say “I” decamped…it would be a little more accurate to say “we”. That’s because I was joined for the first few days by 3 guitarist pals, one of whom has a large part to play in the songs being recorded. Gray Ettrick has been delivering riff ideas to me on a sliver platter for many years now since our Shotgun Wedding times and now we’re in the age of instant video, WhatsApp and whatnot, I can receive these riff ideas almost without warning from him on occasion…when the occasion takes him. His riffing imprint is all over this upcoming album - because, as I’ve explained before, Gray comes up with riffs that catch my ear, riffs that I wouldn’t ever come up with by myself that I can mould into arrangements for songs along with other riffs of my own, as well as vocal melodies and drum patterns etc
A song like K.I.S.S. is a perfect example. I’ve had a catchy, melodic chorus knocking about for years that was the basis for a song (called Sick Of It All) that was never truly fully formed as a song - never got finished. The chorus stuck with me, though, and one day late last year, Gray sent me a riff idea that really caught my ear as a potential verse riff. The more I thought about it, that riff could marry with the Sick Of It All chorus riff. Good enough to work with…now what about a bridge? My attempts to link verse with chorus weren’t good enough, and then lo and behold, Gray sent another riff idea that flowed so well (unbeknownst to him) from that verse riff and could also link to the chorus if I tweaked the end of it.
I’d also been reminded of a great phrase Joe Perry of Aerosmith once uttered about rock songwriting. “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”. That sentiment really resonated with me and suddenly lyric ideas were flowing around the concept of not overthinking how you try to write a catchy song. Within an hour or two, I had the entire song (solo section aside) written in my head. All from a riff I’d been sent on a WhatsApp vid !
So, Gray has a proper vested interest in hearing how these sessions turn out and he was therefore in the control room with me & Tim from mid-afternoon on Day 1 and hung around for the next 2 days too as recordings started to take shape.
One thing I had done ahead of the session was to record rough demos of all completed songs at home using my electronic kit, and guitars bass keys etc recorded using simple rudimentary equipment just to give an idea of their structure. I had recorded these songs to a ‘click track’ hoping it would regulate my drumming, but it ended up being incredibly useful to producer Tim. These rough demos could be added onto the recording grid, have its constituent parts split apart from each other sound by sound using software and thus - for example - taking out drums so that I could record my PROPER acoustic drums in time with the remaining guitars and keys on the demo. Then those would be erased for better bass/guitar takes and so on,,,
And my drums these day are most definitely PROPER. Proper LOUD, as any bass player who lives within a 20-mile radius of me will agree. The old Purple Natal “Vimto Kit” was set up in Sonic One’s ‘live room’ and was mic’d up by Tim using cool vintage microphones both close to and away from the kit. All these mics are carefully chosen by Tim for the specific job they have to do, whether its drums & cymbals or the mics that pick up the sound of the ambience in the room created by my playing of the whole kit.
Once that was all set - which took no more than an hour from initial load in - I plunged headlong into the track listing to see how much could be done before Day 1 was complete. In the end, we only had 2 songs left to record drums for the next morning. I knew my parts pretty much 100%, so it was mostly a question of getting the best performance that I was happy with as well as Tim. I am hard on myself as a musician sometimes, but it’s only right to be so when these are going to be performances set in stone forever. So I concentrated.
Once the remaining bits of drumming had been captured early on Day 2, as well as a piano part for the slow song ‘I Apologise’ (played on Tim’s wonderful grand piano in his live room), it was on to bass guitar stuff. Having lived with most of these songs for a few months prior to these sessions, it afforded me the chance to think more carefully about how bass and drums would lock in together for the benefit of the song. Rather than just thud away on the root note with one string, I endeavoured to move neatly around the fretboard a wee bit and Tim hot me a great gnarly, gritty bass tone that I heard in my head. And - wouldn’t you know it - by close of play on the 2nd day, all bass parts were successfully completed. As with the drum parts, Gray was there to offer his musical input and ‘ear’ to what I was putting down as he sat across from me in the control room.
Pretty soon, Gray would have guitar in hand making a far more direct contribution to things on Day 3. First though, I need to put down rhythm parts before Gray could be let loose soloing. I’d brought 3 of my favourite electric guitars with me that all did slightly different jobs to one another for the sake of variety. My Ernie Ball Axis Sport with its twin P90 pickups had a real thing for the top end I wanted for certain parts, whilst the Washburn Time Traveller PS120 added the necessary bite for other parts thanks to the lovely honk of the mini humbuckers it has. Then another Paul Stanley signature model, the Ibanez PS10LTD had the full on humbuckers I wanted to solo with on one track myself.
So as not to keep Gray waiting too long for his moment to shine, we ensured that the first sets of rhythm guitars I’d do would be for the two songs he’d be on - Damaged Goods & I’m Not Sharing. These songs were perfect for his abrasive, gritty style of playing and it didn’t take very long for him to nail the requisite parts to his satisfaction. His opinion on what he’d done is just as important as mine or Tim’s, so Gray himself had to be happy for us to be happy too, but in reality we were all in agreement as to which solo sounded best of the several he recorded one after the other for each song.
Soon, Gray was on his merry way and it was then down to me to complete Day 3 by attempting to complete the rhythm guitars for the remaining tracks. Again, having demoed my parts up before, I knew what needed to be played - it was now a case of using the right guitar for the right part and get the necessary separation of sound between those parts. With Tim’s skilful guidance, we were so in sync that all my rhythm parts were indeed done by close of play on Day 3 - we were flying through things…and not compromising one bit on quality, I should say. Nothing rushed at all - no “oh that’ll do” policy here. It sounded tight, focused and 100% correct!
The difficult stuff (for me anyway) was to come on Day 4, but first another welcome visitor arrived in the shape of my old Sons Of God/Leather & Lace bandmate Glenn Quinn, as he began work adding bass & guitar parts to an old SOG song that was never recorded with acoustic drums but always deserved the full “treatment” at some point in time. That time was now for ‘Think Tank’. A really dark, brooding, stomping piece is ‘Think Tank’!! Love it. I’d added some suitably dark, atmospheric, dystopian keyboard parts at the front of the song and in the choruses too to give the song further depth which Glenn was very happy with. He was as fast a worker as Gray & myself in getting everything down that he needed to as well. He’s a very talented songwriter indeed and has a great instinct for parts that gel together.
I’m less talented myself when it comes to acoustic guitar picking. Strumming is fine, but playing chords with individual notes in sequence has never been my strong point, especially on a 12-string guitar. However, Tim is a very patient man indeed and ‘I Apologise’ soon had all the right notes in the right order. At around this point, we started sending out ruff mixes of certain songs via email to guest musicians who could help lift the quality threshold still further, particularly in the vocal stakes. Beth Blade sang backup vocals for me on a couple of tunes for the last album ‘Rule Of Three’ and has a fantastic power to her voice that I knew would suit certain high sections of singing that I could never get to. She’s a true friend too - known her since she used to come and watch the old KISS tribute in places like Crewe Limelight back in the day and her current band The Beautiful Disasters makes brilliant rock music. Well worth checking out.
Tanyth Roberts will be a name familiar to you if you’ve followed my musical adventures of recent years. She was the tour de force co-lead singer in the Leather And Lace theatre show I recently did and she’s now front and centre in Steve Steinman’s touring theatre productions like Vampyres Rock and the Meat Loaf musical Anything For Love. She is a born performer and perfect for the one - or so I thought - ballad on the album. So off went various ruff mixes to those ladies to be getting on with.
Meantime, another special guest appeared at Sonic One on Day 5 to round off Week 1. Keith Laurent is my best mate and long-time band mate since we first met in the mid 80’s. He had a song from those times entitled ‘The Feeling’ that should have been recorded or demoed yet never was. I put that right here and asked Keith to pop down and add his soloing to the track, which he was only too happy to do, now he had a new Fender Tele Ultra as a recent birthday present to try out in anger for the first time. So productive was the work in getting a solo down for that song that I conscripted him to provide another solo for a song he hadn’t even heard up to that point!
‘Take The Taste Away’ is a title I was practically DARED to write a song for by my Darts colleagues on TalkSPORT when the phrase came up in a somewhat risqué conversation that had us all ROFL one day at the World Matchplay in Blackpool two years ago. I promised I’d use that title and I was true to my word by writing it (with Gray pitching in again riffs wise here and there). Keith got his teeth into the solo section and again rattled through it in pretty short order, leaving us at the end of week one with almost all the bed tracks done and dusted ready for my vocals to go on next, which was way ahead of where Tim and myself thought we’d be at the end of the first Friday.
Saturday and Sunday were days off for us and we reconvened on the following Monday for Day 6 with an idea in my head that I needed to execute that morning. On my debut album Prove You Wrong, I’d recorded a song called ‘Stronger Than That’ which I was very proud of, but in truth it always lent itself to a different treatment to what we’d done originally. I’d envisioned the song being based less around drums and electric guitar and more 12-string and piano. So I played the song for Tim in the control room and he was right on board to get this new acoustic version of the song made.
12-string, piano, cello (!) and light percussion went down onto the grid just in time for Glenn to return, ostensibly just to play his guitar solo for Think Tank, but he’s got a great singing voice himself which works a treat for backing vox, so I swiftly conscripted him to help me out with the choruses of this new arrangement. 30 minutes later, the new ‘Stronger Than That’ was complete and, according to Tim, having more than a whiff of Jellyfish meets Crosby Stills & Nash about it…I’ll have that!!
My feelings on recording my own lead vocals have softened a touch over the years. My confidence in my ability to deliver in the vocal booth has grown a lot over the years I’ve been recording these albums, but you still doubt yourself sometimes that you can deliver what’s really needed when the time comes to put the headphones on and stand in front of a posh microphone. Again, Tim had my back and we spent Days 6 & 7 painstakingly working our way through the songs line by line, track by track, lemon & ginger tea by lemon & ginger tea! Once you’re on a roll, I find, you really start to get a feeling for what’s required and how to add the right attitude to the lyrics you’re singing. Sometimes it’s meant to be slightly soulful or heartfelt, other times it’s all out aggression or anthemic singalong stuff. I surprised myself, actually, at how swiftly songs were coming together once my voice was sitting on top of everything.
And so to the mixing process once 90% of the songs were recorded. We were still awaiting some vocal parts to be mailed in from elsewhere but at least 5 of the now 10 songs (after ‘Stronger Than That’s sudden inclusion) were complete and ready to mix.
This part of the process is where Tim’s initial diligence when setting up tracks to record really benefits us. The drums, for example, were captured in such a way that there wouldn’t be a vast amount of tweaking required to bring them even more to life in a mix, Remember, for the uninitiated, when you mix, you’re blending the whole drum kit together from the mics on each individual drum and cymbal as well as the atmospheric mics that capture the general kit sound in the live room. Balancing these microphone combinations (which have infinite variations I’m sure you can imagine) gives you a drum sound that tonally becomes the perfect base for all the other instruments to come in on top of, as you add bass, guitars and all the rest of it.
Patience is the key to mixing. Tim will often spend 10/15 minutes listening to one relatively short section of a given song and making EQ adjustments or simple volume adjustments on individual tracks to improve the blend of everything we have. He has a myriad of compressors, EQ’s, reverbs and delays to call upon from his outboard gear, but it’s all used judiciously and never overdone. It’s a pleasure watching him work - he’s also very happy to take my input on things I can hear that might need adjustment as we go. Those moments are very few and far between for me - that’s a measure of how instinctively good Tim is at everything in his control room. I’m good for making the tea and bringing the biscuit tin in from the kitchen, so you know - teamwork etc…
Gray popped in for a day or two whilst these mixes were ongoing. He’s as fascinated by the minutiae involved in mixing as I am, so he was a very happy spectator too alongside me on the control room sofa whilst Tim worked his magic. By the end of the week, Beth & Tanyth had supplied their fabulous work to be pasted into the grid on their respective songs and we had pretty much a finished product by the end of Day 10, save for one guitar solo for the song K.I.S.S. that I knew I would have to wait for from the very talented Sam Wood of Wayward Sons/Black Star Riders/Saxon/Cats In Space/Dead Collective fame. I’m happy to wait just a little longer for someone as gifted as Sam to add stuff into the pot.
I’m sat here typing whilst listening to mostly completed and mastered versions of all 10 songs, which sound so incredibly unified with one another, despite the differences in vibe between them. This process of recording an album in one sitting, as it were, has been incredibly fulfilling and uplifting for me personally. The desire to be creative never leaves you if you have that within you as an artist of any kind. As a songwriter, you should always believe that you haven’t yet written your best stuff and that you should strive for that ‘great song’ you somehow know that you have within you. It’s hard to explain the euphoric feeling of hearing all these disparate parts you heard in your head coming together through various studio monitor speakers, without once needing to use AI. That sort of help may work for some but not for me. If I can’t find a way to express myself musically without needing some AI crutch to help me, then Lord help me, that’s all I can say on that.
When you finally get to hear “Ian Danter Goes Fourth” (as that is the tentative title for this here collection of songs) I can only hope you derive the same joy from hearing them as I’ve had here in South Wales from recording them alongside close friends whom I all trust implicitly to add to the pallet - thanks so much to Tim, his assistant Alex, Gray, Keith, Glenn, Tanyth, Beth & Sam for all they’ve done for me here. It’s always loved and appreciated at this end.