2010 to now (part 2)

As you would have seen in PART 1, 2010 was  a bit of an epiphany of years for me (and the band).

I knew I didn’t want to keep running on the tour / record / tour / record treadmil and had to take a break to find “me” again. But who was that guy? When you’ve done nothing but tour and record all of your adult life, what is left?  For me, every “hobby” I ever learned I did so because it was something necessary. If we needed a website, I learned how to make one. Graphics? Fine, I’ll work it out. Video clips, recording, even building my own guitars back when Dungeon started… it’s stuff that I learned out of necessity. I gained a lot of skills and it was really interesting but it wasn’t really anything that I could call a hobby as such because it all ended up band-related, which kind of defeated the purpose of doing it to get away from the band as a break.

One thing that did keep coming back to me was video production. I’d always been interested in video and had cut together a few videos for Dungeon and LORD over the years, but it always frustrated me that it was either always cheap SD footage or it was stuff I had to rely on to get done by other people. We did a clip with Rhys Day for our cover of On A Night Like This where he and his crew did the filming and production (and did a brilliant job I must say) and I did the edit and visual effects. I remember thinking how this was something I really enjoyed – telling the story of the song visually, the technical aspects of the lighting design, the narrative of the camera movement and depth of field… and the amazing quality you could get from relatively cheap gear, truly world class footage. That stayed in the back of my mind all throughout the tour.

I was a little bit reluctant at first to get involved in this since I was trying to distance myself from doing band-related stuff as a hobby (because I knew that once I started I would instinctively start to wonder how I could use this to benefit LORD) but I couldn’t for the life of me think of anything else I would rather do. I was never big on sports, going to the pub every weekend was a stupid waste of money and I got that out of my system years ago, I couldn’t see the point in collecting stuff for collection’s sake, I loved cooking but I don’t know if I could make a hobby out of it… it kept coming back to video stuff, and I finally went “what the hell” and bought some pro gear and partnered up with James Lopes, who we worked with on our New Horizons and 100 Reasons clips.

We spent a lot of last year getting gear together and establishing the business, Dusk Music Video Production. Here’s the current show-reel:

We’ve done a pile of clips this year for bands from country to commercial rock to laid-back pop and naturally I couldn’t help myself and we did two clips for LORD: Set In Stone and Forever (which I’d wanted to make from the moment we recorded the song).

Somehow, in relation to the video stuff, I’ve also rekindled my interest in photography – the cameras we use are DSLR cameras that are designed originally to be still photo cameras after all – and it’s been great heading out on location with friends who are also into photography or models and just having a good day or night seeing what interesting things we can take home on our Flash cards.

As well as doing the Dusk video stuff, I also got heavily involved in working on projects with other artists. I run SLS Studios where LORD has recorded our last few albums, and the studio is also a commercial facility where I’ve recorded numerous other bands. I tried to limit the number of album projects we’ve had through here in the last year just so I could concentrate more on the video side of things but the bands I have had in here have been fantastic and very inspiring to work with.

But mostly, the studio has been used for writing projects. My own Clarity project is one thing I’m really proud of. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s nice to be able to rip out a pop song, or an orchestral arrangement or whatever I like with absolutely no pressure of deadlines or timelines and no one to please except for myself. As well as Clarity, I’ve been working with our ex drummer TY with a lot of his stuff and a lot of J-pop music that we’ve been lucky enough to be invited to write for fairly big name companies in Japan. It’s such a paradigm shift from how you would write for yourself and for LORD, I think it actually ends up making you a better musician because you think outside the box a little more.

2011 was a good year, learning how to relax, have a nice dinner with friends or partners, doing stuff that isn’t directly related to your main project… and actually making some decent money so you can pay bills and actually buy nice things for a change… was I really ready to go back out on the road with LORD?

Find out in PART 3.