DRUMS DAY BLOG
Today we are spending the day in the studio with our producer for the second album, Stephen Street, and our amazing drummer Mr. William Frederick Bowerman. I am writing two blogs of the day. It is split it two parts, second one starts at the bottom of the first. It's quite long. You might need to pack a lunch.
6.30 am Woke up an hour early because I'm so excited. William is one of the funniest people I know plus he always smells amazing and has taught me a lot about how men should dress. He's my politically incorrect northern brother.
Going to sit and watch the sunrise and do some Noel Edmunds visualisation so all our dreams for the album come true.
6.35 am oh Sunnydale hell mouth why am I awake so early this is stupid I hate my brain. My eyes hurt and I feel like a smoker was sick in my mouth (I don't smoke so this is weird).
6.38 am Maybe I can go back to sleep
6.39 am There are a lot of photos of myself on my phone. If this ever got stolen I would be so embarrassed. I mean they're not embarrassing - I'm not Rhianna - they're just selfies. Like Cher Horowitz I don't trust mirrors and it's nearly impossible to get Polaroid film these days. Plus a selfie on a Polaroid would be so difficult. My arm won't bend that way.
6.43 am Just remembered when I was trying to show our publisher some footage of a crowd on my phone and it kept flicking to the photo afterwards which was of the outfit I was wearing. Oh gad.
6.45 am Great! Now I have opened the floodgates of cringe and all these awesome memories are pouring out!
6.46 am Last year I told Stephen Fry he has a voice like gravy.
6. 47 am When I was thirteen I was getting changed on a beach and my towel dropped and this boy I had a crush on saw. I was so devastated.
6.48 am but Stephen Fry has got a voice like gravy! It is thick and warm. Fuck it I am owning this.
6.49 am That boy I liked had curtains. Remember when curtains on a boy were really amazing? Then suddenly they were so gross? And now they're totally awesome again? Fashion eh?
6.50 am I don't think Jeremy would suit curtains.
6.51 am He could get an earring though. Love a little hoop earring on a boy.
6.52 am Although maybe not with glasses? Too much accoutrement?
6.54 am Argh I should get up.
6.57 am OK I'm getting up. Going to watch cartoons.
9.08 am Got a seat on the tube feeling pretty great.
10.12 am This is where we will be recording today:
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It's called the pool but Stephen says it was never actually a pool.
![]()
10.43 am Having a tea.
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Mug is out of shot. Or in shot, depending on how you feel about Jeremy hahahahaha.
11.20 am William is ready!
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We've caught up on all his news and he's grown stubble! Not, while we've been talking, I think it takes a bit longer than that. He's now banging away at his drums, and our engineer Joseph is making sure it's all mic'd up correctly. Joseph has a beautiful Irish accent. I cannot be around people with accents without unintentionally mimicking them. This is going to be a very testing day.
11.22 am The first song we're going to track is provisionally called 'Two Chords'. It's one of my favourites on the album, it's one of our longest songs, and it's all about how life is really hard and monotonous sometimes but then you realise you're nothing and you'll just die one day, so chill out and have a biscuit. Jeremy's guitar part on the intro is gorgeous, he gets such amazing sounds.
I will just interview Jeremy about how he got this particular "vibe".
"I used the Boss DD6 loop function to create short, strutting loops which played at the same time as the original chord".
I really hope someone tries to do that at home and sends it to us. Imagine if this album got leaked because I explained how we did everything and then someone recreated it.
I am very much enjoying using italics, I shan't lie.
Are you happy with this song Jeremy?
"Err...I'll be happy once the drums are good" WAY TO PUT PRESSURE ON WILLIAM JEREMY, JESUS.
11.30 am Just chatting.
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11.31 am I really need to pee but I can't be bothered to get up. This is called studio malaise. Jeremy is reading reddit. He just found this picture:
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"The lady gave them a USB key with a picture on it that she wanted them to make into a cake. They didn't really understand".
11.34 am Jeremy has just announced that teenagers in Ireland are all wearing burgandy, it's the new trend. Both Stephen and Joseph are wearing burgandy. I feel like such an unfashionable dunce.
11.35 am Correction, the correct term for said colour is "Oxblood".
11.54 am William is wearing a Nike fuel band which works out how many calories you burn doing stuff. Can't wait to see how much drumming gets him.
11.57 am We're recording. This is so freaking exciting. (Still haven't peed).
11.59 am Stephen is such a wonderful producer. He's just so good at listening, and when you're in the booth he seems only to make tiny tweaks but somehow everything sounds so much better.
12.08 pm Jeremy is kinda sorta almost dancing.
12.09 pm Ditto Stephen.
12.11 pm First take is declared "fantastic". We call William the one-take wonder.
12.27 pm When Jeremy and I are writing we like to get our demos as close to finished as possible, but one of the sticking points is always the drums. Neither of us are very good drummers. You can of course program them or sample breaks, but it's always limiting. I'm sure we would have far more guitar-based songs (rock horns) if we wrote with a drummer, mainly because I personally find it very difficult to hear past programmed drums and the possibilities that adding real drums later might bring. I veto a LOT of songs. That's kind of my job in the band. Jeremy is the talented one. I am the veto-er. So today is wonderful. The lift and energy William brings to songs makes so much difference. Plus he always knows what he's doing and can try hundreds of different things.
12.33 pm I'm trying to upload a video from my phone but Kies air won't let me because it says I haven't got fucking Java installed. So I've installed it and it's still not bloody working. Android problems.
12.36 pm FIRST SONG DONE. Stephen says William is an excellent drummer. This is what an excellent drummer looks like:
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12.40 pm William just said that the Obamas are "a family just like us". Don't know how to break it to him that we're not actually his parents.
12.52 pm Juuuuuust bloggin'.
![]()
12.54 pm The next song we're doing is called 'Clay'. Again, working title. I love this song, and I'm allowed to say that mainly because I didn't have that much to do with the writing of it. 99.9999% of the time we write totally together, but every now and then Jeremy will have a day on his own and come up with something. This was one of those times, as was 'Round The Moon'. It's always amazing for me when that happens, because for once I have complete objectivity and can say yes, love it, or no, hate it. I can be very harsh. When we have a song I don't like it actually makes me angry, sort of like, "how could we possibly think this would be right?" I almost feel insulted. I'm sure I've hurt Jeremy's feelings a lot because of it, but thankfully he forgives me. I am desperate for this song to go on the album, but our label aren't too sure. Hopefully William's drums will help.
Anyway I think this song is about the pottery scene in 'Ghost'.
13.05 pm Getting hungry.
13.09 pm One of my favourite parts of this song is that it gradually speeds up. There was a point during writing when we kept having every song gradually speed up. You get into ruts when writing. If you have an idea and it works out, for a while afterwards you keep starting off with that same idea because you think it's the secret magical way into writing. Of course it never works. Pretentious metaphor alert: Good songs are like the common cold. Always mutating, elusive, but instantly identifiable. Or a room where you finally get the key but the next day the locks have been changed. Or a puppy that grows up and pees on your bed then makes you smell it.
13.14 pm I just said "When are we going to track 'Ghost Train' for this album?" No one laughed.
OK end of part one of the blog. More later this afternoon.
x
PART TWO OF THE BLOG AFTER THE BREAK CLICK READ MORE....
13.51 pm I just realised I am in a chair with wheels. Know how I'm spending the next three hours. #sliding
13.52 pm HE'S DONE IT. Second track pretty much, well, tracked. He says he burnt 200 calories in two takes.
15.03 pm Had a break for lunch. William found a sandwich bag and immediately put it on his head.
![]()
He also had to take a lot of calls. "Sell sell sell, buy buy buy"
![]()
We go to a deli near the studio which has these babies:
![]()
It's like dragging someone who likes poppies to an opium den.
15.04 pm The third track we're doing today has a working title I don't want to write. So I won't. DON'T LOOK AT ME! This song has a really tough beat, so we're all trying to explain it to William. Everybody has different sounds they make for drums. Jeremy's are "bum gah bum bum gah". Sometimes it sounds like he's saying "gak" instead of "gah". Bum gak.
This song's lyrics are about how everything is recycled and sometimes it feels like you can never do anything new and people just complain about the same stuff and that's kind of depressing. It's, like, so deep.
15.09 pm Jeremy says he isn't happy "with the grace note". This is what wikipedia says the grace note is:
"A grace note represents an ornament, and distinguishing whether a given singular grace note is to be played as an appoggiatura or acciaccatura in the performance practice of a given historical period (or in the practice of a given composer) is usually the subject of lively debate."
I am ALWAYS up for a lively debate.
15.13 pm OH MY GOODNESS THE SIMPSONS GAME ON THE IPAD HAS UPDATED AND NOW I CAN SEND VALENTINES TO PEOPLE ON IT.
15.14 pm A certain pop songstress is in the studio next door, writing for her next album. I am not allowed to say who she is, but I heard a bit as I walked past. She's moved in a bit of a different direction and you guys are going to be really excited.
15.16 pm Richard X is also working in this set of studios. He's really nice. We talked to him at lunch about the Liberty X reunion. What are your thoughts and feelings about Heaton et al? Apparently Michelle used the reunion to reveal her new boobs. Is it time for the return? Where are the Sugababes?! (Classic line up).
Track three done! record time!
Aw best friends:
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15.24 pm We all agree that Al Pacino playing Phil Spector seems a bit strange.
![]()
15.26 pm We might put claps on this track. Last time we did claps on a song Stephen came in and did them with us. It was pretty preeeeetty cool.
15.32 pm The back of Stephen's head is so lovely.
![]()
15.40 pm Jeremy is threatening to hi-jack the blog.
Hi! Jeremy here. Elizabeth says I have to use this font because it's "more manly". Just thought everyone would appreciate some technical info about how we're putting these tracks down?! So first off we always use Dunlop 1/5" aluminimum-titanium alloy lugnut-tighteners for all our lugnut-tightening needs. You need really tight lugnuts to get a good sound obvs. Also we only use central heating. Fan heaters cause extra ground noise on all non-AC/DC sub-normalised QRT transformers and obviously you don't want that! Finally instead of reverb on this album we're mostly using flange.
15.43 pm I never really cared about Sharpies before I was in a band. Now when I see one lying around I have an almost uncontrollable urge to steal it. I won't steal this one though.
![]()
16.06 pm William is insisting I write that he's just put a photo on instagram with no filter. I've never seen him look so happy.
16.11 pm While Stephen sorts the takes out, Jeremy sent me this.
![]()
16.36 pm Fourth and final song of the day. Working title 'The End'. This song is really weird. It has a key change. Lyrically it's kind of a conceit about letting go of stuff...I think we were trying to be "clever". Five minutes ago there was a lot of discussion about whether or not we should do the open and closed high hats at the same time, but now that's all forgotten as William once more takes his seat behind the drums. Just him and the music. Keeping it real.
16.41 pm Finally got the video from earlier onto my laptop. You can watch William drumming in it and also hear a bit of one of the new songs.
16.44 pm One of the most exciting parts of today, other than seeing William and getting the songs even closer to being finished, is that we can talk about how we're going to do everything live. The three of us love planning the live stuff. What songs we'll start at, who will play what, good moments, what we'll end on...We miss touring so much. I'm going to play toms on this one. I went to toms school over the summer. It was really had to find the classes so I took a tom tom.
17.47 pm WE'RE DONE that's it, thank you so much for being here with us and trekking through the blog. Love you loads.
Today we are spending the day in the studio with our producer for the second album, Stephen Street, and our amazing drummer Mr. William Frederick Bowerman. I am writing two blogs of the day. It is split it two parts, second one starts at the bottom of the first. It's quite long. You might need to pack a lunch.
6.30 am Woke up an hour early because I'm so excited. William is one of the funniest people I know plus he always smells amazing and has taught me a lot about how men should dress. He's my politically incorrect northern brother.
Going to sit and watch the sunrise and do some Noel Edmunds visualisation so all our dreams for the album come true.
6.35 am oh Sunnydale hell mouth why am I awake so early this is stupid I hate my brain. My eyes hurt and I feel like a smoker was sick in my mouth (I don't smoke so this is weird).
6.38 am Maybe I can go back to sleep
6.39 am There are a lot of photos of myself on my phone. If this ever got stolen I would be so embarrassed. I mean they're not embarrassing - I'm not Rhianna - they're just selfies. Like Cher Horowitz I don't trust mirrors and it's nearly impossible to get Polaroid film these days. Plus a selfie on a Polaroid would be so difficult. My arm won't bend that way.
6.43 am Just remembered when I was trying to show our publisher some footage of a crowd on my phone and it kept flicking to the photo afterwards which was of the outfit I was wearing. Oh gad.
6.45 am Great! Now I have opened the floodgates of cringe and all these awesome memories are pouring out!
6.46 am Last year I told Stephen Fry he has a voice like gravy.
6. 47 am When I was thirteen I was getting changed on a beach and my towel dropped and this boy I had a crush on saw. I was so devastated.
6.48 am but Stephen Fry has got a voice like gravy! It is thick and warm. Fuck it I am owning this.
6.49 am That boy I liked had curtains. Remember when curtains on a boy were really amazing? Then suddenly they were so gross? And now they're totally awesome again? Fashion eh?
6.50 am I don't think Jeremy would suit curtains.
6.51 am He could get an earring though. Love a little hoop earring on a boy.
6.52 am Although maybe not with glasses? Too much accoutrement?
6.54 am Argh I should get up.
6.57 am OK I'm getting up. Going to watch cartoons.
9.08 am Got a seat on the tube feeling pretty great.
10.12 am This is where we will be recording today:
It's called the pool but Stephen says it was never actually a pool.
10.43 am Having a tea.
Mug is out of shot. Or in shot, depending on how you feel about Jeremy hahahahaha.
11.20 am William is ready!
We've caught up on all his news and he's grown stubble! Not, while we've been talking, I think it takes a bit longer than that. He's now banging away at his drums, and our engineer Joseph is making sure it's all mic'd up correctly. Joseph has a beautiful Irish accent. I cannot be around people with accents without unintentionally mimicking them. This is going to be a very testing day.
11.22 am The first song we're going to track is provisionally called 'Two Chords'. It's one of my favourites on the album, it's one of our longest songs, and it's all about how life is really hard and monotonous sometimes but then you realise you're nothing and you'll just die one day, so chill out and have a biscuit. Jeremy's guitar part on the intro is gorgeous, he gets such amazing sounds.
I will just interview Jeremy about how he got this particular "vibe".
"I used the Boss DD6 loop function to create short, strutting loops which played at the same time as the original chord".
I really hope someone tries to do that at home and sends it to us. Imagine if this album got leaked because I explained how we did everything and then someone recreated it.
I am very much enjoying using italics, I shan't lie.
Are you happy with this song Jeremy?
"Err...I'll be happy once the drums are good" WAY TO PUT PRESSURE ON WILLIAM JEREMY, JESUS.
11.30 am Just chatting.
11.31 am I really need to pee but I can't be bothered to get up. This is called studio malaise. Jeremy is reading reddit. He just found this picture:
"The lady gave them a USB key with a picture on it that she wanted them to make into a cake. They didn't really understand".
11.34 am Jeremy has just announced that teenagers in Ireland are all wearing burgandy, it's the new trend. Both Stephen and Joseph are wearing burgandy. I feel like such an unfashionable dunce.
11.35 am Correction, the correct term for said colour is "Oxblood".
11.54 am William is wearing a Nike fuel band which works out how many calories you burn doing stuff. Can't wait to see how much drumming gets him.
11.57 am We're recording. This is so freaking exciting. (Still haven't peed).
11.59 am Stephen is such a wonderful producer. He's just so good at listening, and when you're in the booth he seems only to make tiny tweaks but somehow everything sounds so much better.
12.08 pm Jeremy is kinda sorta almost dancing.
12.09 pm Ditto Stephen.
12.11 pm First take is declared "fantastic". We call William the one-take wonder.
12.27 pm When Jeremy and I are writing we like to get our demos as close to finished as possible, but one of the sticking points is always the drums. Neither of us are very good drummers. You can of course program them or sample breaks, but it's always limiting. I'm sure we would have far more guitar-based songs (rock horns) if we wrote with a drummer, mainly because I personally find it very difficult to hear past programmed drums and the possibilities that adding real drums later might bring. I veto a LOT of songs. That's kind of my job in the band. Jeremy is the talented one. I am the veto-er. So today is wonderful. The lift and energy William brings to songs makes so much difference. Plus he always knows what he's doing and can try hundreds of different things.
12.33 pm I'm trying to upload a video from my phone but Kies air won't let me because it says I haven't got fucking Java installed. So I've installed it and it's still not bloody working. Android problems.
12.36 pm FIRST SONG DONE. Stephen says William is an excellent drummer. This is what an excellent drummer looks like:
12.40 pm William just said that the Obamas are "a family just like us". Don't know how to break it to him that we're not actually his parents.
12.52 pm Juuuuuust bloggin'.
.jpg)
12.54 pm The next song we're doing is called 'Clay'. Again, working title. I love this song, and I'm allowed to say that mainly because I didn't have that much to do with the writing of it. 99.9999% of the time we write totally together, but every now and then Jeremy will have a day on his own and come up with something. This was one of those times, as was 'Round The Moon'. It's always amazing for me when that happens, because for once I have complete objectivity and can say yes, love it, or no, hate it. I can be very harsh. When we have a song I don't like it actually makes me angry, sort of like, "how could we possibly think this would be right?" I almost feel insulted. I'm sure I've hurt Jeremy's feelings a lot because of it, but thankfully he forgives me. I am desperate for this song to go on the album, but our label aren't too sure. Hopefully William's drums will help.
Anyway I think this song is about the pottery scene in 'Ghost'.
13.05 pm Getting hungry.
13.09 pm One of my favourite parts of this song is that it gradually speeds up. There was a point during writing when we kept having every song gradually speed up. You get into ruts when writing. If you have an idea and it works out, for a while afterwards you keep starting off with that same idea because you think it's the secret magical way into writing. Of course it never works. Pretentious metaphor alert: Good songs are like the common cold. Always mutating, elusive, but instantly identifiable. Or a room where you finally get the key but the next day the locks have been changed. Or a puppy that grows up and pees on your bed then makes you smell it.
13.14 pm I just said "When are we going to track 'Ghost Train' for this album?" No one laughed.
OK end of part one of the blog. More later this afternoon.
x
PART TWO OF THE BLOG AFTER THE BREAK CLICK READ MORE....
13.51 pm I just realised I am in a chair with wheels. Know how I'm spending the next three hours. #sliding
13.52 pm HE'S DONE IT. Second track pretty much, well, tracked. He says he burnt 200 calories in two takes.
15.03 pm Had a break for lunch. William found a sandwich bag and immediately put it on his head.
He also had to take a lot of calls. "Sell sell sell, buy buy buy"
We go to a deli near the studio which has these babies:
It's like dragging someone who likes poppies to an opium den.
15.04 pm The third track we're doing today has a working title I don't want to write. So I won't. DON'T LOOK AT ME! This song has a really tough beat, so we're all trying to explain it to William. Everybody has different sounds they make for drums. Jeremy's are "bum gah bum bum gah". Sometimes it sounds like he's saying "gak" instead of "gah". Bum gak.
This song's lyrics are about how everything is recycled and sometimes it feels like you can never do anything new and people just complain about the same stuff and that's kind of depressing. It's, like, so deep.
15.09 pm Jeremy says he isn't happy "with the grace note". This is what wikipedia says the grace note is:
"A grace note represents an ornament, and distinguishing whether a given singular grace note is to be played as an appoggiatura or acciaccatura in the performance practice of a given historical period (or in the practice of a given composer) is usually the subject of lively debate."
I am ALWAYS up for a lively debate.
15.13 pm OH MY GOODNESS THE SIMPSONS GAME ON THE IPAD HAS UPDATED AND NOW I CAN SEND VALENTINES TO PEOPLE ON IT.
15.14 pm A certain pop songstress is in the studio next door, writing for her next album. I am not allowed to say who she is, but I heard a bit as I walked past. She's moved in a bit of a different direction and you guys are going to be really excited.
15.16 pm Richard X is also working in this set of studios. He's really nice. We talked to him at lunch about the Liberty X reunion. What are your thoughts and feelings about Heaton et al? Apparently Michelle used the reunion to reveal her new boobs. Is it time for the return? Where are the Sugababes?! (Classic line up).
Track three done! record time!
Aw best friends:
15.24 pm We all agree that Al Pacino playing Phil Spector seems a bit strange.
15.26 pm We might put claps on this track. Last time we did claps on a song Stephen came in and did them with us. It was pretty preeeeetty cool.
15.32 pm The back of Stephen's head is so lovely.
15.40 pm Jeremy is threatening to hi-jack the blog.
Hi! Jeremy here. Elizabeth says I have to use this font because it's "more manly". Just thought everyone would appreciate some technical info about how we're putting these tracks down?! So first off we always use Dunlop 1/5" aluminimum-titanium alloy lugnut-tighteners for all our lugnut-tightening needs. You need really tight lugnuts to get a good sound obvs. Also we only use central heating. Fan heaters cause extra ground noise on all non-AC/DC sub-normalised QRT transformers and obviously you don't want that! Finally instead of reverb on this album we're mostly using flange.
15.43 pm I never really cared about Sharpies before I was in a band. Now when I see one lying around I have an almost uncontrollable urge to steal it. I won't steal this one though.
16.06 pm William is insisting I write that he's just put a photo on instagram with no filter. I've never seen him look so happy.
16.11 pm While Stephen sorts the takes out, Jeremy sent me this.
16.36 pm Fourth and final song of the day. Working title 'The End'. This song is really weird. It has a key change. Lyrically it's kind of a conceit about letting go of stuff...I think we were trying to be "clever". Five minutes ago there was a lot of discussion about whether or not we should do the open and closed high hats at the same time, but now that's all forgotten as William once more takes his seat behind the drums. Just him and the music. Keeping it real.
16.41 pm Finally got the video from earlier onto my laptop. You can watch William drumming in it and also hear a bit of one of the new songs.
17.47 pm WE'RE DONE that's it, thank you so much for being here with us and trekking through the blog. Love you loads.
x