Oh Thomas, where's that album?

The art of getting things done II

If someone were to pose the question, “which album took the longest time to make?” it would be hard to get a definitive answer. Let’s say a band takes 10 years to follow up one album with another. Did they spend the whole 10 years making it? Maybe they downed tools altogether for 9 and a half years and then rushed it.

It isn’t important to crown the champ, though a few notable mentions spring to mind. Guns n Roses’ “Chinese Democracy”, The Stone Roses’ “Second Coming”, every album by Scott Walker from the 80s onwards (where did he go for all those years?)

How about bands that scrapped whole albums and started again? That’s got to be a rough one. Screaming Trees did it once. I’m sure there are others. 

All the above mentioned had the added pressure of having already made a significant mark in the world with their music. They’d played, they’d toured, they’d recorded. They’d all been pretty famous (some really famous). I can only imagine the anxiety of feeling like the world is waiting to hear if you’ve still “got it”, never mind the internal doubts and the feeling like irreplaceable time is ticking away.

So, all that being the case, I’m only 3 months in (give or take), 3 months since I spent a day recording an album with a master plan of no messing around and maximum efficiency.

But I’m impatient. 

I also have pretty much zero pressure coming from anywhere or anyone to hear what I’ve made. No recording contract to fulfil, no tour to promote, no fanbase to satiate.

I’m impatient nonetheless.

To be fair to myself, this isn’t really a 3 month wait. In a way, it’s more like a 10 year wait. There’s a song on the album that I think I wrote 10 years ago. Something of that order. It was supposed to be on the album Neil and I spent years to never finish. Starting all over again after giving up on that album was hard. I definitely downed tools for a hot minute. 

As a matter of fact, when I first had the thought to make this album, I had in mind an album of spoken word stories with musical backings. I’d been writing on and off for the past few years. Not necessarily thinking about songs. Writing to write. At a certain point I thought: maybe I can do something with these. When I thought about putting together a whole album of stories I realised, oh I can make this way easier, I can throw in a bunch of songs I already wrote before. 

September 17th Neil and I spent 12 hours of recording time together in his increasingly sweltering studio (bedroom); December 30th we’re all geared up to meet up again for one last day’s work to make the final mix. It’s the only day we’ll both be in London before New Year. In the meantime he’s been working on mixes (in between work that pays him). A smidge over 4 months to make an album. Not a bad effort. But it’s not done till it’s done.

And I’m impatient.