The thought occurred to me to make the parenthetical headline for this post, “In Which Ben Ward Recounts and Summarizes Orange Goblin‘s Sundry Misadventures During the Recording Sessions for Their New Album,” but I think “The Grand Finale” works just as well. Given the much-appreciated effort on Mr. Ward‘s side in sending over these updates each week for the last month and a half, “Grand” seems like just the right word.

Sad as I am to see this series end, I’ll take my comfort in knowing we’re that much closer to the next Orange Goblin record. What follows is a summary of the band’s time in the studio. Thanks again to Ward for putting these updates together, and to Candlelight Records for making it happen. This is already one of my most anticipated releases of 2012.

If you want to see the now-complete series in its entirety, click here. Orange Goblin is Ward on vocals, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner.

Thanks for reading:

Orange Goblin – Studio Summary

Well, here we are. Six weeks on from when we first set foot in The Animal Farm recording studio in Bermondsey, London and we have another Orange Goblin long-player in the can. It’s been a very different, almost relaxed affair and the breaks between sessions have been great, allowing us to take the songs away and scrutinise them before going back and adding to them or changing them where we saw fit.

I think we’ll all miss the studio a bit. It became our little haven for those six weeks and a chance to get away from the real world! A place where it became acceptable to drink five beers before lunchtime and eat cold pizza until you felt nauseous! A place where we heard tales of how often Brain Harvey (ex-East 17 numbskull!) farts, how amazing the “Guitarminator” is and how we should never, ever ask the producer for a “laptop mix!” I certainly won’t miss the stress of trying to get the songs finished and writing the lyrics though… That can wait another five years now!!!

I have to take the opportunity to say a massive thank you to Jamie [Dodd], Ville and Mat [Leppanen] at the studio for their understanding and letting us come and go as we have done, without them this album would never have happened. Here are a few of the highs and lows of the last 6 weeks recording the album:

HIGHS:

1 – Getting all the rhythm tracks done within the first five days of recording. Not that this wasn’t expected as Chris has never taken more than a couple of days and Martyn is usually pretty spot on too. We afforded ourselves a bit more time for the drums and bass this time though as writing the songs was only completed on the day before Jamie first hit ‘record.’ Anyway, spurred on by silly amounts of Boddingtons and steak-flavoured crisps (chips to the Americans!) the rhythm section got the job done and to celebrate we all went out for a victory drink in honour!! This meant an all night session in the Crobar, far too may beers and sambucas, a massive dent in all our wallets and an even bigger hangover the day after!!!

2 – Guitars and vocals going as smoothly as they did. What with all the coming and going of various people at various time, Joe and I managed to keep focus and get our parts done in time too. We set up a routine of him doing a track, then me doing one, so neither of us got weighed down with too much and we both got a regular break. Jamie was great in this respect as it meant him having to go back and forth with setting up the guitars and the vocal booth but it worked out in the end. We didn’t do anything in particular to celebrate but had a constant supply of cider, red wine, lager and whiskey, which always helps! I have to give special mention to the afternoon I locked myself away in a different room with the sole intention of completing lyrics for one of the songs. An hour later Joe burst into the room to find me fast asleep with absolutely nothing written!!

3 – The day of the photo-shoot. I can’t remember the exact date but the shoot went really well and it was a nice, sunny day (rare in London during the summer!). What was amazing was the number of screaming, teenage girls that had gathered at the studio gates who we joked must be waiting for us! We later discovered that they were there for a teenage boy band that were rehearsing (miming into their hairbrushes!) next door. As I left the complex in my car that afternoon a couple of young girls asked if I would smuggle them into the studio in the boot (trunk to the Americans!) of my car… I’ll leave you to make your own sick joke up here!! PS – I didn’t!

4 – PIZZA DICE!!! This was an absolute godsend!! It was established in the first couple of days of recording that there were only two local pizza companies that were prepared to deliver to a recording studio on the fourth floor of an industrial complex so we decided to try them both. The first was Tower Pizza, who didn’t make a very good impression by bringing us completely the wrong order, not that we complained as it meant we got more. That was until we opened the box and tasted it!! I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was the worst pizza I have ever had. All four of us were starving but we threw 90 percent of the order away as it was so bad. I’m pretty sure chicken isn’t supposed to be green! Next day we tried Pizza Dice and hey presto, it was fantastic!! The order was right (always a good start!) the pizza tasted fresh and the chicken wings were not green! Plus, they also sent ice cold Coca-Cola, which went perfect with the whiskey!!

LOWS:

1 – Tower Pizza. (see above)

2 – Joe waking me up. (see above)

3 – The crowds of teenage girls NOT being into Orange Goblin. (see above)

4 – The studio being based on the fourth floor and having a no-smoking policy, which meant treks downstairs and outside every time we needed a cigarette! At least it gave us a chance to work off the beer and pizza!

It’s been fun writing these updates for The Obelisk and I’d like to thank JJ for posting them each week. All that remains now is for us to get the final mixes, master the damned thing and get it out there for the world to hear! It will be out by the end of March 2012 and I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait! Thanks for reading!

Ben Ward, 22nd September 2011.

 

Tags: Candlelight, London, Orange Goblin, UK

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.