Every time I watch Star Wars, Shostakovich appears. Behind every lightsaber duel, every flight of the Millennium Falcon. Behind Vader’s breathing… there is Dmitri:
Every time I watch Gladiator, it happens again. When Maximus shouts “At my signal unleash hell”, Dmitri’s ghost appears.
Beside Chabrol, with his elegant and distinguished, dark and dissonant music. A reflection of family relationships that guide the movie. It’s inevitable, Shostakovich visits me. Other composers are speaking , but with their language.
When it happens, I always ask to Dmitri’s ghost the same questions: And you? Who are your ghosts? Who inspires you? He never answers, goes out.
Only when he disappears I can relax and enjoy. But when the movie ends…
At the end, the story of each song is the story of the videos where it plays, of the ideas that the song accompanies. But it’s also true that most of these songs have a single origin. The memory, the place or the scene that inspired me when I wrote it. “My story”.
It’s an exercise I do sometimes: I think about a scene and try to put music in it. Something like going to the gym, but much more fun (at least for me).
“Railroad’s Whiskey Co.” for example. I imagined an off voice telling a story. With a surreal touch, black humor. Absurd. A man walking along a deserted road, dragging a heavy suitcase. Exhausted, sweating alcohol. Without destination. This was my video, my story for Railroad’s. And the story of John…
There are times when two stories overlap. Someone who doesn’t know the origin of the song but posts a video that may just be my original idea, or something very similar. Moments when the music seems tailor-made. Which makes you think “Hey, That’s it”.
Productions that could be a videoclip or promo of the song but no. Not my story, despite appearances.
For some reason, every time I go out of home for a few days and I don’t have the chance to record, ideas come up. The majority get lost along the way, but there is always one that you think is good enough to drive you crazy trying not to forget it before coming back and getting your hands on the piano.
I was going to enjoy 15 relax days at Santander beaches. To disconnect from work, enjoy the company, and if I got lucky, maybe gather some motivating and inspirational experiences. Travel was on bus, a bit more than two hours.
Most times, at least for me, tunes come up when they want. You have been days chasing an idea or a concept, getting your mind around it, and when you least expect it the thing starts working. So the melody came to me in the first five minutes of the travel. The bus started, drove a bit around the city, and when merging into the highway… There you go, that guitar started resounding in my head. And hey, after all, you are not telling the driver “Excuse me, can you stop the bus at my place for a minute?”. Fifteen wonderful sun days with beach, sea, conversations, relax and long walks were waiting for me. And fifteen days of keeping those notes from going away.
Clear it is that I made it
Just as soon as I arrived I recorded the tune as good as I could. Maybe for that reason the sound is not clean enough. Even though, I chose not to rerecord the guitars once the song started to grow. I liked that oldie feeling. It was like picking up and old recording and instrumenting it today. (“Free as a bird”, you know). Two hours and ready to go.
The down side of this things is having so much time to think about the song. The good part is that by the time you get home the tune is almost finished, and in just a moment you record it.
