Our Feb release in the Cannonade of Content is a prog-rock version of Van Halen‘s “Right Now” with a some middle-eastern influence. Pre-save it here on the streaming service of your choice!
This turned out to be one of the most involved and frankly difficult arrangements I’ve ever made. Sadly, it wasn’t even semi-finished before our friend Bill B. (who requested it) died. But he did hear the arrangement and and nearly completed demo and loved it!
When Skunk sent his vocal demo, we realized the original key was too high for him. I personally liked Skunk’s demo and would’ve been fine with the bizarre Ween-like vocals but I was over-ruled. Even Skunk didn’t like it.
Skunk was so busy and the instruments were already tracked so Katie, Chuck and Oliver Rajamani all tried to sing this tune and it was still just too high. We’d wanted Oliver to do a bunch of cool Indian vocal stuff but he was also dealing with Covid issues that affected online collaboration. It was hard to tell if the idea just wasn’t working or if it was too high for him, too or both.
We realized it wouldn’t be ready for the Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love EP so we dropped “Right Now” from that release. That gave us more time to work on it.
Chuck suggested we get Jack Stamps to help and mix this tune. He added some really good ideas and pared the arrangement down but none of that fixed the vocal troubles. By this point, I was frankly ready to be done with the track. We were closing in on Halloween prep time and I needed to shift focus.
I tried pitching down ALL the instruments to make it easier for anyone to sing but they sounded terrible. I even tried re-tracking them in a different key but it was MUCH more difficult to play and everyone would’ve had to redo everything. One weekend, Chuck listened to a bunch of Scott Wieland, set up his mics in a closet and belted out these vocals, even pulling some of Oliver’s Indian ideas. The result is… odd!
So much about it came out fantastically and though the vocals are kind of strange, so is everything else. The meter, the weird eastern-influenced modes against the mostly original melody, the mix of Space Invaders-ish bass synth with acoustic guitar and violin. And I adore the solo section which was heavily created by Phil!
I hope you’ll enjoy!
Josh
