The mother.

My weapons today

(via cowgirlmax)

It’s less then two week until we record our first single and I got the email saying Stephen Street will be producing it today. If you are not familiar with him, he produced these records…

I am beyond excited.

3am Romanian pizza party.

James Page Syndrome: To never stop eating.

Up the punks.

There has been a new addition to the family. I give you, Tom Wilkes. Watch out top 40.

New equipment was needed, new equipment was brought.

Rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. Three days a week, eight hours a day and recently I’ve started to even dream about the chord progressions I am bound to.

I’ve been here before though. This time last year Look See Proof and I were coming to the end of an almost six month practice schedule. To say it was an awful experience would be an understatement. We all hated being cooped up in a tiny room somewhere south of the middle of nowhere, Herfordshire. To make things worse, it wasn’t just rehearsing, it was writing. Ever been around five totally different guys trying to compromise on the thing they hold most dear? Trust me, it’s hell. Then to top it off add a Red Bull endorsement. Hyped up young males jousting over who was the musical alpha male. I felt like I was a member of The Brian Jonestown Massacr.

Yeah, so it was awful. Yeah, so for a while it made us loath what we did. And yes, we were  physically/mentally drained… But as soon as we took our new songs to a stage and played these brand new jams, it felt like we had just got back everything we put into them. I know it’s soppy, but it really is one of those feelings that you can’t get without a shady handshake from a back street narcotics dealer.

Now my situation now is a little different. Our surroundings are a bit more lavish (and by lavish, I mean the room is bigger then my toilet and there is paint on the walls), I actually get paid to practice and we have all the encouragement in the world from the label, management et al. I’ve tried in vain to convey this story to the guys before, as naturally it can make you little disheartened and go insane playing your own songs to yourself for the majority of the week. So hopefully this will make a little more sense to them (most of the sentences that come out of my mouth contain more stutters and babble then sense) and they will eventually get to feel the same sense of a “job well done”.

It’s bloody hard to do these things and not look silly right? I’m pretty sure I didn’t succeed. At one point a bunch of ‘youffs’ shouted something along the lines of “YOU BUNCH OF FUCKING QUEERS”. Lovely.

Well anyway, I thought it would be nice to put some faces to the stories.

As I spend half my time in London now (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), you know what has become my favorite thing? That’s right, coming home. It’s not a case of resenting the capital, it more a case of appreciating what I have. In fact, if I juxtapose the two just right, I can appreciate both the chalk and the cheese. Going from a inner-city train so packed I don’t have enough room to open my paper to walking through my whole neighborhood and not passing one single person could not be a better feeling.  When I was younger, I used to romanticize over London like you wouldn’t believe. Now I’m living it, it’s playing out a little different to my boyhood expectations. Sure there are bright lights and parties on every corner, but the reality of it is so much better then that. The hustle and bustle of everyday life is literally like an electric shock to my brain. Seeing people from every corner of the world working and commuting together is the perfect tonic to having to deal with the very same people barging past me on the tube every morning/evening on the way to/back from rehearsals. Deep breaths right? Katherine, the singer in my new band (see previous post) said she had never met anyone that complains and moans as much as me before. She may be right you know… but as much as I moan, it’s mostly in jest.

So yesterday I was at Universal Music’s HQ to record a few demos. It was a pretty weird experience to be honest. A line of MacBooks in the canteen, upper middle class receptionists and “cool as fuck” young professionals. It was all a bit too much for the senses. Nevertheless, I, as always, did my best to fit in. I was polite & courteous and made appropriate jokes in appropriate situations. I don’t really want to bring it up again, but I’ve been given this ridiculous opportunity and I swear I’m going to make the most of it.

Just in case you were wondering, I had the coconut and vegetable curry in the canteen.