Music

I recorded my self-funded debut EP 'Pair Shaped' at Joe Public Studios between August and December 2010. I sang all the vocals and played all the keyboard parts, and my producer Joe Lonsdale played all the bass and guitar parts and did all the drum programming. During the recording process I made a couple of Making-Of videos, which you can see below...

I hope you enjoyed them - they give a good indication of the fun we had making the EP. Below are videos for six out of the seven songs from the EP, as well as a description of each track (and by the way, since I composed and performed these pieces, I own the copyright on them - so they're not to be used without my permission)...

1. Take...

The opening instrumental is the main theme I composed for my debut film 'Take'. I included it on the EP partly as a way of connecting my film and music projects, and also because it leads rather nicely into the second song on the EP.

2. Your Picture

When I came up with the tune for this song, I always pictured it being arranged like a gloriously cheesy 80s movie ballad - which is what I've gone for in the arrangement (full-on Supertramp!) The first lyrics I came up with were the first four lines of the chorus, and after that the rest came pretty quickly. It's about that special someone that makes life worth living for. (Note: as I mentioned in the Making-Of video, there's a point in this song where we debated having a background vocal going 'shoobee-doobie-doo'. We ended up leaving off the EP version and releasing an alternate version (the cunningly-named 'Shoobee' version) on a different EP - the equally cunningly-named 'Another Pair' EP, which is also available on iTunes, Amazon and CD-Baby.

3. Cheer Up

This is a song I wrote about the kind of singer/songwriters who are always complaining or writing songs about death and pain. I'm not saying sad and melancholy songs can't be great or beautiful, but some artists seems to be incapable of singing about anything else. And honestly, if you've got tons of money and millions of adoring fans, what are you complaining about?

4. Mystery

To be honest, I'm not really sure what this song is about - I guess that's part of the mystery ;) But if I had to guess what was going through my mind when I wrote the lyrics, I would say it's about how hard it is to see another person's viewpoint when you''re so convinced that yours is correct. It could also be about the desire not to have an opinion about something, or to remain neutral on an issue you don't care or know much about.

5. Some Things Never Change

This is a bittersweet song about how days/years can go by without much changing, and even though that may seem like a sad thing, it can also be seen as reassuring, knowing that there are people and things you can always count on. When we were recording this, my producer Joe suggested it might work well as a Christmas song, so we decided to make an alternate version. I changed some of the lyrics in the chorus, and just to give it that 'Christmassy' feel, we added some bells and gothic keyboard voice. This version (along with the 'Shoobee' version of 'Your Picture') is also available on iTunes/Amazon/CD-Baby on the 'Another Pair' EP (clever name, eh?)