A half hour of music from The Fierce And The Dead, Part 1/2/3

I've been meaning to write this for a while and connect the dots....

Part one came about from a composition i had in 2007 ish called Snow which was split into 3 parts, you can hear the original version of snow HERE. When it came to recording Ghost my second record we did a new version of it, with my friends Stuart Marshall and Kevin Feazey - this became a bit of a 19 minute epic. Its built up from improvisations on the themes we did together. Here it is:

I'm still really pleased with this, which is really unusual for me. Kev played the keyboards on this, I love that section. The melodies and Stu's drum fills. I have no idea how this came about, it feels more composed than improvised. That day the music just seemed to flow. I wish I could recreate that at will. 

After recording part one we all got a bit excited and thought this could be a band. I'd had the name The Fierce And The Dead since 2004 ish and I'd been trying to put a band together around that but it had never happened. People would not be interested or move to Turkey, very difficult. Anyway I liked the name so we decided to put Part 1 out as an EP under the name The Fierce And The Dead. People seemed to really like it and the response was really good, even thou we'd never rehearsed or played a gig. Anyway we thought it would be an idea to make an album and do some concerts, we all loved Part One and wanted to do more with it. 

We recorded the debut album at Livingstone Studios in London in two days, after a couple of practices. We had a lot of the bits and improvised the rest on the day. We then learned the improvisations for concert performance. With all these tracks Kev would do a fair bit to them afterwards, adding parts etc. Hes a great producer. We had to get another musician in for the live gigs. 

Part 2 is shorter and punchier, we changed the melody and the chords. More upbeat. I like the solos on this one, i actually learned to play it so i can do it live, very unusual for me. I do this one for my solo gigs and we play it with Fierce And The Dead as well. Me and Steve do a harmony part on the middle section now live. 

Part 3 was recorded the week before my son was born, at Livingstone again (my son was born in a hospital). Whammy pedal guitars all over this one. And the arrival of Mr Steve Cleaton on guitar. He is a great player, amazing ears and scarily accurate. This one reminds me of My Bloody Valentine. I think this provides a decent noisy end to the whole thing. 

Will there be a Part 4? We'll see. Let me know what you think :)