Beck writes…
It’s funny how things change… all the time… all is change… Just weeks ago I was determined to release a mini-album of symphonic gothic metal, filled with themes of vampires and haunted ruins. I am a BIG fan of “vampire romances”, as you know. I intended to write the lyrics and do the singing, but to invite some fabulously talented friends to write the music for me to sing to. The motivation behind this project was simply that I needed to “scratch an itch”. While I tend to sing moody, ghostly ballads and dark folk songs, I also enjoy listening to heavier music. I have always wanted to try singing with screaming guitars and angry drums. I wanted to be the wailing banshee over the top of the dark soundscapes.
Now two different things have happened which have caused a sudden change in direction. I am very excited by it all and I hope that you will be too, and that I won’t be disappointing any of you. Firstly, I ‘placed an ad’ on Facebook and my website, announcing that I wanted to sing with heavy, symphonic music and inviting people to get in touch with me. My recording engineer and co-producer of ‘Ye Olde Silent Inn’, Steve Palmer, happened to mention me to Brian Dade of AiiRadio, who happened to know that UK pagan prog/symphonic rock band LEGEND were seeking a singer… and the rest is history… I am now singing for LEGEND. I have just about finished recording the main vocals for the new LEGEND CD ‘Spirit’, to be released later this year. Singing with this epic, awesome music has been such a wonderful experience. I am loving it. I get to sing with all of my “different voices” – my “head voice”, my “tummy voice” and all sorts of challenging transitions between the two. I am always an emotional singer with my main focus on trying to create or interpret moods and atmospheres with my voice, and that is something that LEGEND’s music has really given me an huge amount of scope to experiment with. Singing with Paul’s guitar, Steve’s keys and John’s drumming is SO MUCH FUN!!!!
Steve Paine is LEGEND’s main music writer, as well as being the keyboard player, sound engineer, producer and pretty much bits and pieces of everything else! Steve and I are developing a great recording relationship, as well as friendship, and I feel comfortable exploring my vocal capabilities and trying to stretch myself in new directions. I am looking forward to seeing where LEGEND goes next! (www.stevepaine.org).
So, back to the story… I still intended to go ahead with my little heavy, dark project as well, and I got talking with a friend named Dan Sullivan, who is a pretty awesome guitarist. He agreed to write some music for me to sing to and I started to outline the whole vampire/haunted house theme. We then got together a couple of times to have a play around with some ideas. Then a wonderful thing started to happen… the songs began to take on a life of their own and basically demanded to be able to speak with their own voices. The lyrics, no matter how much I tried to enforce vampires and full moons into them, kept crying out to be emotional words of the heart… of failed relationships, of betrayals, of hurts, of rejections…
So… instead of fighting against change and instead of trying to force the songs to be a certain way, I feel strongly that I must go with the flow and record this little collection of emotionally-based songs co-written by Dan Sullivan and myself. The music that Dan has written is still quite heavy, but the vibe is more “metal ballad” and even “grunge-like”. I have also written a little piece of guitar which Dan and I are developing into a moody little instrumental piece… and you never know… maybe a vampire will still come misting into the words somewhere… but only if the words let him 🙂
So, I feel that I have “scratched my itch” with LEGEND’s ‘Spirit’ CD and my collaboration with Dan Sullivan. I can’t wait to share both collections of music with you! I look forward to telling you more about both of them in the near future.
I am still releasing my fourth solo CD later this year – a wintery, frosty album. As you can imagine, the current weather is perfect for inspiration and the songs are developing in a tinkling, icy, white-fluffy way 🙂
Thanks for listening,
Stay warm and safe,
Beck xx
The new edition of Mojo Magazine (out later this week) will be celebrating the magazine’s 20th year of publication. To mark it, they asked Kate to design the hand-drawn cover! The Independent newspaper 
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In his “Soundtrack of my Life” features in The Observer Sunday 1st September, Sir Elton John noted Snowed in at Wheeler Street as “The song that was difficult to Record”:
