Looks like things are starting to wind down for our heroes The Goblins. As vocalist Ben Ward reports, the recording is almost finished for the band’s as-yet-untitled seventh studio album, and once that’s completed, it’s on to mixing and glory. It’s been great keeping up with Ward‘s reports, and this one’s no exception. In it, he details wrapping up the guitars, vocal recording, a pride-bursting photo shoot, and much more.

If you missed past installments, click here. Orange Goblin is Ward, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner. Please enjoy this latest update:

Orange Goblin — Album Recording – Week 4

We’d had another week to prepare for the recording again and we all arrived bright and early Saturday morning ready for a photo shoot. Our good friend Oran Tarjan turned up to take the shots and we spent a few hours around the studio complex doing shoots in various locations. As the day wore on a massive crowd of teenage girls had gathered at the studio gates and we were convinced they must all be there to catch a glimpse of their heroes Orange Goblin! It was only a bit later on that we found out that a young boy-band were shooting a video in the studio next door and they weren’t waiting for our autographs after all! With our egos in tatters, Joe set about getting a large chunk of his work done before I got down to some work, allowing the rest of the band to make suggestions for certain parts and we ended up with two more songs finished, both of which are very different from my normal vocal delivery. This album is really taking shape and it’s dawning on us all that there is some stuff that we have never really tried before but all agree that it works really well and I think the OG fans will like it too. Chris finished all his percussion parts (MORE COWBELL!!!) and we resisted the urge to order yet another nasty pizza from the only place in South East London willing to deliver to us, in favour of finishing early and going home for a decent meal! This seemed like a great idea until Joe, my son Max and I got stuck in massive traffic jams due to some rioters clashing with the police in Mile End and all the roads being closed. At least my son had fun counting the police riot vans rushing to the scene! We eventually got home and A LOT of ice cold beer soon helped me forget the traffic misery!

Sunday was more of the same, really, so not a great deal to report, except that Chris wasn’t in as he was celebrating his seventh wedding anniversary by taking his wife out for the day and Martyn showed up before heading off to a party which was also being attended by Su Pollard of Hi-De-Hi fame (…don’t ask!) During Martyn’s brief stay he did crack us up with his tales of woe which involved ranting about inappropriate party attire, overpriced, deflated balloons and a very expensive melted birthday cake. Joe and I eventually managed to regain composure to get within a whisker of being finished with the aid of some cheap lager and Scotch whiskey! Producer Jamie [Dodd] burned us some CDs to take home and listen to and we arranged some rough mixes to be sent to a good friend of ours in Boston who will be supplying some guest vocals on a few tracks this week. I have to say at this stage that everything is sounding better than ever and apart from the odd verse here and there (which I plan to re-sing this weekend), the vocals sound great! By the end of this Saturday (10^th) we should have everything recorded and mixing will start first thing on Sunday!

So another weekend gone and we’re another few steps closer to having the album finished! A few important lessons have been learned this week, important things about recording techniques and ways we can improve our performance in the studio and on stage. But, I think the most important thing we learned is this – DO NOT get Martyn Millard to organise a surprise birthday party!

Ben Ward, 6th September, 2011

Tags: Candlelight, London, Orange Goblin, UK

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 at 10:35 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.