New EP - Where Time Stood Still out now ⏱ 🎸
Hello there,
I’ve got to admit, I love albums! While I enjoy working on and releasing singles, to me, in music, nothing beats a collective and cohesive body of work compiled in one package and under one banner or title. This probably dates to my teenage years when I used to anxiously wait for my favorite artists to release their albums and I, a pubescent zitty kid, rushing to the record store to buy the CDs (or Compact Discs 📀 for you Gen Z kids) 😊, tearing the plastic wrap, taking out the booklet, admiring the artwork and reading the lyrics, credits and linear notes while blasting the music in my stereo (which was a big machine to put the cds in and listen to them for you Gen Z kids 😊) and annoying the neighbors with it. AHHH the good old days…
Side note: Sorry for the jabs, Gen Z. They’re just jokes. I love you and I just wanted to lighten the mood a little because the subject matter of the album and the songs are pretty dark.
The idea of this album and how it came to be is pretty different from the way I wrote and recorded my previous musical works. I was inspired by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and how they recorded their album Carnage. I recall reading an interview with Warren and he described the process of recording this album. In short, Nick and Warren met after the Covid restrictions started to lift, and recorded an album that was basically improvised on the spot. They booked a studio for a certain amount of time, composed and recorded an album right then and there. AND it sounds brilliant! So beautiful and organic. No preparations, no demos, just pure musical chemistry and being right there in the moment. So, I decided to try that and adopt the same method for 2 main reasons:
I felt that this would be a new “uncomfortable” experience of recording to me. Going to the studio unprepared. I wanted to find out what insanity will come off of that (and a lot did)!
After about 3 or 4 years of playing guitar, I noticed something. Almost every time I pick up a guitar, I come up with a song idea or a riff in the first 30 seconds. I kid you not, 90% of the time, I jam and start doodling with the guitar and I come up with something. I have thousands and thousands of unused riffs or ideas that I keep in the vault (and yes I saved them and backed them up unlike some famous guitarist in one of the biggest bands in the world hmmm Kirk Hammett). Granted, not all of the material is worthy of being released but a lot of it is pretty solid and good. I always wanted to kind of build up on that spur of the moment, that instance of coming up with something, and directly build a song from there and put it on record. In these moments, I am so musically pure and I always wanted to put this purity on record. No overthinking, no tweaking of ideas, just pure organic music.
As an artist, I like to challenge myself. I like to push the boundaries a little bit. Trying new sounds, experimenting with different styles, using different methods of recording techniques… Yet, normally I like to have a song somewhat ready before going into the studio. I normally prepare a full demo or I would go in the studio with the main melodies and guitar riffs ready and we develop and arrange the songs there. This time It was the total opposite. I called Hadi, my producer, and I told him the Carnage story and I said I’m just going to come in with some lyrics and we will develop the songs there from scratch. That’s it, we record one full song in one day. No riffs, no predetermined ideas. We will vibe with the songs’ lyrics and start bouncing ideas. Just be there in the moment, oblivious to the world outside us; Where Time Stood Still.
The album is composed of 5 songs and an intro. As I mentioned earlier, the subject matter is dark; and how could it not be with all that’s going on in the world around us. As an artist, I’m inspired to write about matters that affect me personally or about matters that are taking place in the world around me. The lyrics were written in different time spans. Some are a bit old and some were very recently written.
“To Tame a Man” (a play on the title of the Iron Maiden song “To Tame a Land”) is a heavy song about war. The song was written a while back but, sadly, it feels very current and relevant with what’s happening today. Unfortunately, war with all the pain, death and atrocities that come with it, is a timeless matter. It’s simple; man is evil and greedy and will continue to be until the end of time.
“The Age of Mediocracy” is another heavy song that talks about how unoriginal and stale we’ve become. Nowadays, we only follow trends; we are unimaginative; We don’t think for ourselves, Our attention span is that of a fish; We are mediocre at best.
“Never Leave Me” is one of the weirdest and most different tracks that I’ve worked on and I love it for that 😊 It’s a very dark song about being unable to break free from a destructive relationship.
“The Land of the Cedars” is a slower song with a heavy 80’s chorus that talks about my home country Lebanon and how someone who is born there is doomed forever.
“Section 666” is a heavy song about the aftermath of the August 4, 2020 Beirut explosion. It talks about how the murderers and the politicians involved in this explosion are abusing the law and avoiding trial. Indeed they are protected by the number of the beast (Hello, Iron Maiden).
I really hope you enjoy listening to this album as much as I enjoyed the process of creating and recording it with Hadi. This was the most collaborative effort we worked on and he told me that he enjoyed this process so much.
I was a little scared before we started the recording process of this album. I was afraid that coming to the studio unprepared might end in disastrous results. You, as a listener, will determine if the material we came up with is good and worthy; but as an artist I was very happy with being in the zone, in the moment, doing what I love, where time stood still.
Listen to Where Time Stood Still here
All the best,
Greyfade