Lead Parachute

Sometimes when writing new songs the most inspiring moments are not necessarily when things are going wrong. More simply put, it is usually when things are the most busy and have no time to write those ideas down. Usually I will totally forget them until I randomly decide to sit down at a piano and miraculously remember. This new song I'm working on is one of those occasions. The song is titled "Lead Parachute". The idea behind the name is a metaphor. The mood of the song is very parallel to what Ive been feeling lately. The term "Lead Parachute" refers to the idea of a safety device that is no longer keeping you up in the air. Rather it has decided to bring you down to die. The lyrics for this song are still a work in progress. Which is mainly why the song is just a work in progress right now. Its still not even close to being finished. Anyways. Hopefully you enjoy it.

-James

Road Blocks

     Writing and recording new tracks often takes a lot of time. Lately we've had numerous road blocks that have been preventing us from writing and recording new material as often as we'd like. The first road block would have to be school. According to the world, when it all comes down to it. A college degree is one of the most important things you can get for your career. Sometimes, this is a double edged sword. At one side, you really want to finish and do a good job, but at the same time you have all of these songs just sitting waiting to be finished. Not to mention, I'm already working at my dream job. So at this point, I'm really just getting a degree to simply just "get one". Not only does school take up nearly all of my free time, but working 30+ hours a week really kills all the rest of my time. If you throw on a pretty crazy social life on top of that I can basically tell you that I have no life. To be honest, I can't really complain, since I generally like being ridiculously busy.

      Sooo back to music. The plan is that hopefully before January we might have two new songs finished entirely. The album that we are currently working on is probably not going to be done till next Fall 2013 to be totally honest. At least unless something gives way. Currently with the amount of stuff going on Neobrite stuff has kind of taken a back seat. Which to me is fine, since this allows me to regain my thoughts and focus on new ideas. Ultimately this will lead to a better album, it just might take a heck of a lot longer.

- James

Last in Line

       So today we started the workings of a new song titled, "Last in Line". This song is very different from our other music. Like I have explained before the song writing process for each song is entirely different. The way that this track came about is that I basically said to myself. "Okay, today I'm gonna write a song in the key of F#." That is pretty much how it happened. Sometimes, I will just pick a key and just go with it until something sounds good. Usually it only takes about an hour till I get something really concrete. The first part of this song that I started writing was the square wave synthesizer arpeggio in the beginning of the song. I have been kind of playing with an arpeggio similar to this one for days on the piano. It wasn't till I sat down today that I actually recorded it into the computer. Believe it or not, a lot of the song writing we do is a combination of randomness and intuition. I usually have a random thought of what would sound "cool" in my head, and then I can usually always figure out how to make it happen. The whole idea of writers block doesn't really apply to the way we write music. Usually if we stop writing a song it is only because we just didn't like it enough to finish it. Most of the time that happens before we even bother recording vocals for it.

       My main goal for this song was that it had a big powerful chorus line. The way I usually go about this is a lot of layering different instrument parts that harmonize together. Sometimes, I just wing it and hope it sounds good mixed together. For some reason this technique seems to always work out for us. Which for the most part is pretty funny. Another big part that I wanted to include in this track was some really cool drums. We ended up layering 3 different drum sets for this track to give it a really big over the top sound. I think it ended up working out really well.
      As always, the trickiest part for every song is the lyrics. If you actually listen to what I'm singing is really makes no sense at all. Usually, with lyrics I have a habit of making nonsense sounding like something really important. As I was explaining earlier, randomness comes really in handy when writing these tracks. To us the most important part of these songs is the melody. If the melody sounds good, we are happy. Overall, this song seems to be coming along really well. Hope you enjoy it!

-James

New Beginnings

        Writing a new song is always a time consuming task. Much less writing an entire album. The album we wrote nearly took us 2 years to finish while working part time and going to school full time. I've always enjoyed the writing process of the music a lot more than the live side. When you record a song, you can live in the comforts of your own studio and take your time creating new ideas and concepts. However, when it comes down to a show you are always pushed for time and hoping people show up. As a result studio time has become one of my favorite times of the year. As a tradition, I usually spend a majority of my winter break recording and mixing for days on end. It has always been my favorite tradition of years past. For some reason the seasons have a way of inspiring creativity in ways that ordinary life can't.
         Lately, we have been working on a few new concepts for a new album. The overall theme has yet to be determined however. Some of the songs we've been working on span across many different genres from indie to heavy electronica. This makes it really hard to come up with a theme when your thoughts appear to be entirely random on a day to day basis.
        One of the concepts we have been working on lately is the idea of using a less produced sound. Perhaps, bring in a little of the vintage feel into our recordings. For some reason I always seem to have an attraction to songs that sound like they were recorded in someone's garage. As a result we've been playing around with a few different types of sounds. One of the song we've been working on reminds me of something "The Cranberries" would have made. It has that raw 90s rock vibe that I've always greatly enjoyed. One thing that I've learned about song writing is that you are often never writing the song. A good song writes itself. This idea has played true for every song I've ever had the chance to be apart of.

-James