Sunday 22 July 2012

Contest Us Cd Story - Cries Of Freedom

I came upon the vocalist for 'Cries of Freedom' whilst touring whilst touring with the act Zino & Caroline and we had just come from playing in Perth, where we'd partied for the three day straight with the band Direct Influence who was doing that leg of the tour with us, the intense partying was caused by one of the band members finding a bag of pills that they'd forgotten on the flight, whilst searching for headphones and us being worried about airport sniffer dogs tried to eat as many as possible. We'd made it to Lismore, which was the next leg of the tour, which we were playing a festival. I ran into my friend Shirley Davis at the festival who was singing in a another band, with Jornick (Mista Savona), Lamine Sonko (Public Opinion Afro Orchestra) and Saritah. We hung around the festival for a while to have a look, but being so tired decided after our flight we decided to crash for the night, before the show the next day. We arose the next day to head to the festival from our motel room, to head to the festival, so the guys could play the show. After the show we retire to our motel for a minute, to see the rest of the band away, Matt Bray drummer from K-Oscillate and 28 days, had a flight the next day, decided to get a bottle of alcohol, which I dropped shortly whilst walking to the to the festival, we ran back to the bottle shop, 5 minutes before closing time, but the guys had decided to close. We walked to the festival unfulfilled but thought that would be an omen to not drink anymore and continued to the festival. ' We came across most for twenty dollars seeing that way as much cash we had as they were not accepting card, we grabbed a bottle of something to put it into then proceeded to mix it with a bottle of water backstage. Shirley and crew were on stage and had just finished up, then waited to meet and greet them on their arrival then proceed back to motel, Matt and I had invited the 12 or so people in to our motel room and began a jam consisting of Lamine, Jornick, Shirley, Saritah, Matt and numerous people. we all started singing and jamming with an acoustic guitar and would have to be one of most beautiful moments of my life. We arose early the next moment to catch a bus supplied by the festival to catch a flight, but the us ran incredibly late and so we missed the bus and spent the next 5 hours waiting for the festival to organise the next flights for us, which we had a fantastic time mucking around and drinking we in the end we got back to Melbourne and in the end no act was paid even with contracts as hardly anyone showed up to the festival, the organiser went bankrupt shortly after, telling us to hold tight you will be paid as soon as he was going to sell a house, a year of had passed and that never happened.

Having the experience in Lismore made me realise what beautiful lyricists and people Jornick and Lamine are and asked them both to be on the track, Lamine came into the studio first with long time friend and band member 'Lady Lash', I asked lash as I knew the 3 voices would work well together, I love the fact Lash can sing like an angel and rap, I find great amusement in recording Lash's vocals, as she will be singing something than go out of tune or sing a wrong word, then curses like no one I have ever heard. We spent the first few hours of the session listening to the music and writing lyrics, the thought I had for vocals was about freedom and experiences each person had been through, which the guys did, but when it came for Lamine to sing it he sang for about ten minutes nonstop, unfortunately it wasn't what I was looking for and didn't keep it, I did ask Lamine to come in again but he was about to go on four month tour. Jornick was the next to come in, I have the deepest respect for Jornick, through working with him in 'Mista Savona' the only way he can describe him he is such a beautiful person. We got into the studio and Jornick put on a spiritually uplifting cologne, that is the best way I can describe it, he asked me what the subject of the track was I told him and without listening to the beat and before it began he started singing, the first bit was out of tune, which was a shame as it was so good and not even the plugin 'Pitch Correct' could fix it. Jornick had the same approach as Lamine and put down 10 minutes of singing in one go and both of us were amazed he was able to put down back ups to it and that the session took twenty minutes, I found out later he has a lot of similar lyrics. Choi and I spent a lot of time listening and editing Jornick's lyrics after he had left and we had something that resembles a track. I gave Jornick's lyrics to Lash, as Lash was to come in again and I spent some time going over to Lash's and her partner 'Skitzo Beats' house to write new lyrics to match up closer with Jornicks and at the next session Lash got two verses down in no time and not too much cursing either. In the same session Lash and I put down backups for the track 'Wart's and All' as I wanted to put a choir feel at the end of the song, I then realised how badder singer I am, as Choi and Lash both couldn't stop laughing throughout my session and I'm quite lucky to have been able to delete the video footage that was taken, with a little of help from 'Pitch Correct' that was the beginning and end of my singing career. After not being able to get Lamine back into the studio I thought long and hard about who to get in to finish the track, I contacted Simon Wright who I was a fan of, had done many shows with, and had talked about doing bookings for and managing for him for a little while. I sent Simon the music and without much effort at all Simon had written his lyrics, we armed ourselves with a bottle of Scotch and headed out to the studio, Simon was a bit worried at the time about being the only white guy on the track and sculled quite a few drinks not even I could keep up with him, but was ready to go, Simon was awesome on the day and even helped arrange vocals and music for the track, I had been quite worried about how the track would turn out, but was very happy after that session.

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