The first week at Ocean Way was a strange and frankly unpleasant experience
for everybody."
It started well with a trip to the fine music shops of L.A. and a quick spending spree, this saw us loading up the cars with vintage synths,electric tamburas, broken old drum machines and all manner of noise making loveliness.
We arrived full of optimism and feeling ready to make a record. Confidence in the Travis touring bubble was at a high.
We had just completed an 18 month tour that had seen us playing to more and more people each night and, we felt, getting better and better as a band. We were looking forward to carrying this energy and self confidence into the studio.
Unfortunately the last thing you need to make a record is high self esteem. Hence the first week saw the five of us giving ourselves an egoectomy.
We began with 'Side' a song that had been worked out in soundchecks to the point where we thought we had it pretty much right, we set about recording with gusto and fairly quickly realised that recording this album was not going to be the simple matter of putting down the parts we had all worked out.
By the fourth day Franny and I were sitting in the car park of Ocean Way, heads in hands having a frank discussion about how shite we were, both of us terrified that Nigel would leave us because we were so rubbish. Nigel meanwhile was in the control room terrified that he had forgotten how to make records. this was a low, then something magic happened.
After playing around with 'Side' and deciding to put it to one .. er.. side, it was suggested that something more delicate and with no pre-prepared arrangement might be a more appropriate place to start. So it was that brave wee Franny armed only with his acoustic guitar marched into the studio. Nigel sat on the floor twisting the nobs on an electric tambura until it was right and then Franny started singing 'The Cage'.
It sounded so beautiful that we were a little trepidatious about about putting anything else on it. We hadn't really expected there to be drums and bass and dulcimers and synths on this song but Nigel was keen to confound our expectations and as things were added those that worked were kept.
We spent the next day adding to this lovely thing trying not to ruin it . we left the studio on Friday night hoping it would sound ok on Monday. It did. and that was really the start of the record.
So much was done in the following two weeks that its difficult to remember .'Safe', 'Sing', 'Indefinitely', 'Humpty Dumpty' and 'Afterglow' were all recorded in this time. it seemed that 'the cage' had opened the floodgates.
We spent pretty much all our time on Sunset Boulevard. at one end was Ocean Way at the other was the Chateau Marmont where we stayed in our wee bungalows, and of course the bar Marmont where we got out of our wee bungalows.
Songs like 'Sing', 'Safe', and 'Afterglow' had been worked out in soundchecks and stuff, but it felt like after 'The Cage' we weren't restricted by the existing arrangements they were just a starting point.
Indefinitely' was played late at night sitting on the floor, nobody knew what they were going to play on it, but we decided to all do it at once anyway. after a couple of goes through it we started recording. it was always a good sign when Nigels voice came over the headphones and said something about the 'vibe' and apparently this had a really good one.
The 'Humpty Dumpty Love Song' originally was just Franny alone on an electric guitar with Nigel sitting on the floor twisting the nobs on one of the broken drum machines, it became an altogether different thing once we got back to London. But at this stage it was a very simple very beautiful thing. Nigel was convinced we could make it better, I wasn't convinced but as usual Nige was right.
Stay tuned for; the return to London! webcam action! babies crying! helicopters! and much more.
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