“Classically in Love”

ok my dad likes this song so that’s not a good thing!! ha! let me explain how I wrote this song. My friend john made a short film that he wants to enter into the film festivals. to do this he needs an original soundtrack, and he told me could I contribute if his composer in wales fell thru. he showed me the start of the film, basically it’s the morning time and this man gets up and plays a prank on his wife, pretending to get a heart attack. suddenly the mood changes, they laugh it off, and the credits start. I went home that day with these images I my head. I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this song. I know it’s not the most original song in the world, but it always puts a smile on people’s faces when they hear it.

ian and mike provided the bass and guitar parts for this song. it was kinda of an isinglas reunion!! the lads being who they are decided some “healthy competition” was necessary whilst they recorded and they came up with a game to see who could get their parts in less takes, mike won on 2 takes!! their guitar and bass really took the song where it was supposed to go.

“Heavens Last Embrace”

another song that the very talented emer helped me out with, she told me she played the mandolin and I taught that this instrument would suit the song. we jammed it anyways and it wasn’t seem to be working so I said “a banjo would be perfect” and out of nowhere she pulled one and we played the song and it was exactly what I wanted! for the strange riff, emer had to tune her banjo to an open chord. when we recorded it I accidentally had the vocal effect I used in the bridge of the song, but I don’t think it spoilt the banjo part. This also was the first song I used my new typewriter for. I will explain my crazy typewriter thing another time!!

me and simon (isinglas keyboardist) were chatting one day and he said that he wished that our songs sounded more like the killers. Someone had given me “hot fuss” in LA and I had a quick listen but it didn’t really grab me to be honest. Of all these new bands that are been played at the moment on the MTVs, with the exception of Interpol, I don’t really care for most of them. But when I heard mr. brightside in a club on Hollywood Boulevard and I saw how everyone reacted, I knew that this is why they are so popular. catchy pop tunes. So I had its “catchy pop vibe” in the back of my head when I wrote this song, whether it came out in the song I don’t know!!

Wordly Problems

one of the things that i loved about working in LA was the fact the ethnicity of my workmates was so varied, i was working with people from all over the world, and being a country boy from ireland i had never had done this before.

one day i was working with Gabe, a espanic boy from downtown LA, and we were cutting onions. (soon this would become our thing, crying and cutting over 200 cut onions!!) i have cut so many onions i can now cut it like the chefs on tv, real quick. plus my eyes dont water any more! anyways, this was my first day i was working and we were chatting away about this and that. he was telling that he was finished high school and was waiting on colleges to accept him and he was so scared over it. had also said he had gotten in a fight with his girlfriend the night before and she was'nt talking to him and also his beloved car (like a dukes of hazzard one!) was at the garage. it suddenly hit me, even though i was over on the other side of the world in a strange land, people still had problems, people all over the world have bad days and every teenager puts up with the same shit growing up. some people hide it better than others, some leave it all out. but no matter what; everyone 'feels'.

“Bareback”

this song isn’t really a official “Steady State Sessions” song, I recorded it in my hallway last year with my minidisc player and a shurf mike. I closed all the doors and positioned the mike in a corner high up to get the effect the way I wanted to. Its funny actually cos I gave a copy of the song to this guy who is big into his recording in studios and stuff. He was all like “I like the way the chorus is modulating on your voice…did you run it thru the mixer or a external device..... pretty standard really”. And I was like eh no recorded it in my hallway!

isinglas kinda jammed this song, darren had a cool bassline, we never actually got around to playing it properly thou. It was written after I was hanging out with someone (who as since then become a very good friend) and we were txting and in between the texts I wrote the song. The words aren’t about anything really, I like to think they were about my girlfriend of the time but they are’nt, I think the “feel” of my head space of that time was really captured when it was recorded.

“Les Cloches Sonnant et Vous”

this is another song that I was really happy with the outcome. the title of the song, when translated, refers to a persons name. I had one format in my head for the song but when I jammed the song with stove it changed around a bit so I had to re-record the acoustic guitar on stoves beautiful taklemine. we recorded in stoves bedroom at the of barracks street one friday nite. we lacked microphone stands so I took of my shoe, balanced the mike on it, put the shoe on the edge of the shelf and had to lean in whilst I played!
Stove is probably the best guitarist I know, not because he shreds fast, and play any song he wants to, its because of his original style which I can't compare him to. maybe johnny squire. but that’s still not close! plus stoves was in the right mood that night for this kinda song cos of his martial status situation! Ha! Stove has many effects pedals and an ibanez which we put thru my 8 track. Stove listened to the song a couple of times and we recorded many different versions but we settled on this one. he doesn’t like what he played but I think its spectacular!

I then got onto emer for her violin parts. I love her part before each chours. we recorded two violin tracks for the riff part and it sounds well. also I love how raw its sounds. It was funny actually, the day we recorded in her house, my old secondary school principal was there….

I then got the flu(I blame annifer for this!) and wasn’t able to recorded the final vocal part till a couple of days later.

Thanks to stove and emer again!!

“Vanity”

this song was written originally on my acoustic. our piano at home is about 125 years old and is a beautiful instrument and has been passed thru generations. it even has candleholders for the times when electricity wasn’t widespread thru Ireland. the piano hasn’t been tuned in a few years so it was tuned down two semi-tones. so then I started to tune the guitar down two semi tones and that’s why most of the songs on “Steady State” are tuned down this way. this is also a song I frequently played in clubs in LA.

anyways I started to play this song on the piano, I had all the parts written but it still sounded “empty” and because I used all my piano tricks on “7 interludes….” I then knew I wasn’t able for the task of playing the song myself.

I got onto emer, who knew of eamon, who was the keyboardist in her band. I wrote down the music and format on paper and went to his house. eamon’s about 16 years old and looks like he should be in pearl jam. he took one look at the chords, I showed him the riff, and he started to play. what he played was amazing! he is one of these people when he plays, he make it look so easy and graceful, whilst someone like me looks like he’s in pain when he plays! he is also one of these people who is like: “I think ill learn the bass guitar today” and have it mastered in a week!

we recorded the piano and I went home and put strings on it, recorded the vocals, put reverb on “max” to give the song a more “epic” feel. anyone who hears this song now cant believe how well the piano sounds. Thank you eamon for playing the piano and making my song sound like a real song!

The Tara Brooch

I think I was 9 at the time when this happened, we were on a school tour and we were at some museum place. My mother had given me £10 pocket money for the day. I was with my friend in the tour shop and we saw these pins on a stand and one had a picture of the Tara Brooch on it. My friend and I both got a pin each.

On the bus to the next place on the tour I was showing off my new pin to the people in my class. There was a girl in my class who was much stronger than me (I was particularly small for my age, also this girl would later go onto break my nose and give me a copy of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” pointing to the path I’m on now) and she wanted the pin I had bought. I had paid £4 pounds for it so we haggled until I got to £12.50 and half a can of coke. The deal was made. I now had a budget of £18.50 for the day and I wasn’t thirsty.

When I arrived home that night my mother asked me how much I had left over after my day out, I had £8.50. She didn’t know about the “Tara Brooch” so she was amazed I had only spent £1.50 for the day and gave me a big smile and a hug.

LOVE

people ask me alot what is my perception of love because a speak of it alot in my songs. i have never been love so i cant say much, but i can discuss what i think it is. i have told only one person that i loved her, but now i know i didnt. i have never written a proper love song. just hinted at it here and there.

-there are many types of love; the love between a mother and her baby, friendship love, and love between two people as "attraction love" which i am going to discuss the most.

-love cant last forever. id like to think it does. i state this because friendships dont, people drift apart naturally over the course time, people move on. it has happened to me. people change and since friendship is not as "intense" as love i think the same can be said for love.

-you can only be in love if the other person loves you back, unrequited love is not love. this is lust or whatever. love is a two way connection.

-the same is with love at first site. its only lust. the other person must react the same as you, then it might eventually become love.

-i think that there is only one person you are to be with out there for for each person. with that i must add i think i have met that person last summer and she is now gone, but if its ment to be, we'll meet again.

“wrestle me to the ground”

i knew i had to avoid this song in the sessions as long as i could cos it would be the biggest challange. dav took up role on bass again, and did a fantastic job. the song should actually be an extra minute longer, cut i ran out of room whilst mixing it. i miced up the amp, used a spanish guitar, recording the guitar solo's were fun too.

IN VIVO Girl

by chance, ive been bumping into "IN VIVO" girl alot recentley. when i met her first, at a party a while back, (i wrote the song that nite) we chatted bout the usual stuff: college and projects, general stuff really. but now we talk bout all the random stuff i talk about, like: robots, jackie chan and batman, its cool really cos she can keep up with my randomness. and shes funny. when we bumped into each other recentley she was looking so magnificently beautiful and her sweet scented perfume overwhelmed me fo a second. at that moment i wanted to tell her bout the song. but i couldnt. for lots of reasons. she's heard some of the songs ive recorded, but not "IN VIVO", it would be too typical really if i did.oh, her boyfriend is dead on too.....