WorshipCentral

Midway through the morning we have a huge surprise!

We started early with acoustic guitar for ‘Worship the Lord’. I would have thought that playing acoustic guitar was pretty straightforward. It’s amazing what you can’t get away with in the studio. If something sounds 99% tight ‘live’ you can usually lose the 1% in the vibe of the moment, but the studio is totally unforgiving. That 1% sticks out like a sore thumb, so we go over and over checking timing, tuning, obsessing about which strings the pic hits. It’s mad.

Halfway through the morning, Martin pops his head round the door to say Anna had the baby last night. They’re already home by mid afternoon. It’s a gorgeous little girl, Mary-Anna Merciful. She even popped into the studio later on to say a little hello. Birth is such a miracle; it instantly puts everything into perspective.

I’ve given up listening in to the edits while Trev comps the vocals together to get a perfect version, as it’s a very painful process, especially when it’s your mistakes being edited out. I’ve spent most of the afternoon watching the Mighty Boosh on the BBC website and drinking too much black tea.

To be honest the whole thing is very exhausting. It’s not only demanding physically, but you’re constantly having to think about what you’re doing down to the minutest detail and texture.

This afternoon we spent more time getting the vocals right on ‘Worship The Lord’, and tracking a second layer of vocals on the chorus, singing exactly the same thing. This is good fun, but again really tricky. That cool little thing you did first time round in the main vocal seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it’s got to be copied perfectly. The result is really cool. Like stereo, but more beefy.

Then we started on the vocals for ‘Morning Star’, which is a real anthem, so the feel had to be ‘football stadium belter’ on the choruses, but quite intimate on the verses. We’re still going after food.

We’ve got something a bit different tomorrow…