Band Member Journal :

Well, spring has passed and we find ourselves in the middle of a good old dreary wet English Summer (not that the weather is of much concern to someone who seems to spend most of the time inside a recording studio!) and it looks as though the pattern of afternoon and evening recording sessions will be with us for a while yet.

Currently we are about two thirds of the way through recording backing tracks for the new album. These are the first steps we take of "proper recording", after arranging the songs for the album. Each of our backing tracks is a multi-track version of the song. We all play as we would live, and H sings along. We record various versions of a song until Dave Meegan decides we have all the ingredients he wants for his musical soup. These backing tracks will be the backbone of the finished songs; we will later embellish these versions of the songs throughout the next process (over-dubs) with different sounds, or change little things, such as adding harmonies, or maybe even record some choirs or live strings. We will all put our ideas down and watch the whole thing grow.

For me, this "next stage" is a very exciting one, but - like you - I can't wait till the whole thing is done and dusted! When will that be? I don't know The whole process becomes elongated because this is a double album, which we've never done before, so not for a while yet!

As long a process as this Marillion album is turning out to be, it is good to have some time away occasionally. I have been trying to find time to work on my own music - which I haven't managed to do recently! Hopefully I shall be going over to John Mitchel's studio to record a Kevin Gilbert song with him, and another musician, John Beck (to be included on a Kevin Gilbert tribute album). That will happen if I can organise a few hours away from Marillion. The three of us also hope to finish off the album that John Mitchel and I have been writing, with a view to begin recording it when the Marillion album is complete.

I'll have an update on all of it in a few weeks. Until then, have a good Summer.

Pete