In this next installment of our guest blog series from the band Ghost Tree, Haydon Spenceley updates us on the progress of their EP as attention turns away from the recording phase and onto promoting the record. Haydon addresses the idea that God doesn’t really need PR…
Greetings! It’s a chilly Sunday morning here in Nottingham, and I thought it was about time (mostly because Jono told me it was) that I put finger to keyboard and updated you all about the goings on with Ghost Tree, and our very soon to be forthcoming debut, self-titled EP.
Since we last spoke (I imagine our times together as cosy fireside chats) lots has happened. Our EP is now completely tracked, including some fantastic string parts, which are amazing and wonderful (did I mention that they’re quite good?) and mixed. Kevin and Brandon have done a fantastic job of bringing my vision for these songs to life in the mix. They sound huge, and yet spacious, risky yet absolutely spot on. Even my voice sounds OK (miracles do happen). This coming week, Brad Blackwood is apparently setting to work on mastering the record so that, in a few short weeks, we can let it out of the bag for you all to enjoy. Can’t wait for that. At the same time as figuring out mixes, I’ve been working on some ideas for tours for the next few months as we look to make the most of the fantastic platform we’ve been blessed with. We’ll be announcing a couple of very different tours in the next few weeks, both of which I’m very excited about. Also been dipping my toe in the waters of trying to find partners with whom to release the record. I know very little about business, so it’s an eye-opening experience for me to even begin to have conversations with people. No idea what will come of all that.
Still need to figure out what to do with my hair.
At the same time, I moved to Nottingham yesterday to start theological college (I’m training to be a vicar from tomorrow – bonkers) while others of us in the band are having joyous family experiences, and some sorrows too, as some seasons come to an end and others start. It’s got me thinking recently, life goes on, seemingly, whatever happens. Life isn’t all about music and bands and good hair (although I really wish I could do something with mine). If nothing else, this year’s taught me that the songs I write and sing should match the life I live, and the words I do and don’t say. I want to be welcomed home as a good and faithful servant, to know Jesus, God made man, not my own construct of who I think Jesus is, but who Jesus actually is. I want others to know Him too. This is the point of all that we do as a band (I hope) and if we ever get lost up our own bottoms, or chasing after a different dream, I hope that we have people around us who will tell us off, dust us down and set us on the right path again.
This morning I woke up thinking about brackets. I read a lot of press releases, and often, the humble bracket plays a crucial role. What happens often goes something like this: “Blah Blah band announces the release of their new album Seismic Shift in History of Modern Music. The new record was produced by A.N. Other (someone who should make you go “ooh, ahh, I must buy this record forthwith if not sooner”)”. What got me thinking is, we could do this. People who worked on our record have worked on some very cool pieces of music, and continue to do so. It’s very tempting for me, as I start to think about promoting the record in the next few weeks, to litter our PR stuff with said brackets. I could easily press the right buttons, play the right games, and impress people a great deal. There’s a big temptation to do it – part of my brain really wants me to make back a lot of money, or even, gasp, make a profit, so that i might be able to support myself, think I was stewarding my resources widely or, double gasp, have enough money to make another record. Thing is, God doesn’t really need PR does He? He doesn’t need, require, or even want me to manipulate how I present myself in order to ensure more people listen to what I have to say. Or maybe He does, maybe He wants me to make the most of the blessings and opportunities He’s given me. I really have no idea. I guess I just struggle with the idea that this is the standard way to do things. I don’t want to come off as idealistic and pretentious. I just want to honour God, and I’m not sure how to do that….So, in a few weeks, when you see our PR stuff and it’s plastered with brackets, you’ll know that I capitulated!
We’re so close to having stuff for you all to listen to now, it’s very exciting. I can’t wait for the chance for you to see/hear what all the fuss is about!
Please pray for me and for us this week. It’s so inspiring to be part of a community of faith, and to know that we’re not alone, and not doing this for our own benefit, but to serve and bless people, and to bless and thank our God. Let’s hope we all find ways to live our lives along those lines this week.
Tag: LTTM
In the fourth part of our series of guest blogs from LTTM friend Haydon Spenceley about the recording of his new band Ghost Tree’s debut album, Haydon gives us an update on the album and explains the heart behind some of the songs.
So I look out of my window as I begin to write this fourth blog entry for you about Ghost Tree’s recording trip to Nashville. It is cold, it is grey. It is raining. I must be home. It’s amazing that you can so comfortably gauge whether you’re in the UK or not by whether it looks like it might rain or not. I’m looking back over the last couple of weeks since I last wrote for Louder Than The Music and I have no idea where to start in how to describe simply how awesome, exciting, frightening and fattening the latter part of our trip has been. I suppose, as I wrote about my toilet travails last time, I should pick up from where I left off.
You’ll be pleased to know, no doubt that the only lasting damage from my brush with the bathroom was to my pride, but that was by no means the last of my hazardous health histrionics. Indeed, on the very next day, while Ben and Mark were tracking at Brown Owl (which may be one of the coolest places on the planet). I discovered a large bite on my arm. Upon inspection at the local hospital, it turns out I had been dinner for a Brown Recluse Spider. I don’t know whether I’m exaggerating, so please excuse me if I am, but apparently bites such as these are potentially fatal, so I was freaked out more than a little bit. Anyway, come 3am the next morning I was home tucked up in bed, having been treated well, but still a little bit scared, I must admit. One of the things that had scared me was the potential financial cost of visiting the hospital and paying for treatment (high). In this, as in every other aspect of this trip, God was faithful, and provided me with a route to claim on my insurance, and pay for the prescriptions I needed to deal with the problem. I am pleased to say that now my arm is completely healed and I am back to health. It was a sobering reminder of my need for God though, the kind of reminder that seemed to come for all of us who were involved in the record at one point or other in the trip.
The next day was another rhythm section day, with some keyboards for me to do as well. I took abundantly great joy in playing a couple of songs on a Fender Rhodes, and another on a wonderful old upright piano, before finishing with some time on a Wurlitzer. All great fun, especially on 4 hours sleep. We concluded at 2am with Kevin (producer) trying to work on a Wurli part that ended up requiring that he play the right hand and I play the left. Teamwork is dreamwork people! I should point out as well that Kevin and Brandon had gone well above and beyond the call of duty in taking me and staying with me all the way through my hospital experience the previous night, so we were all quite worn out by this point!
I also had the pleasure of coffee-ing with Chad Johnson that day. Chad is a total legend, who heads up Come and Live! and seeks God in a way which is consistently challenging to me. Come and Live! have some cool bands, and an even cooler heart for ministry. Keep an eye on what they’re doing, and pray for them.
With the rhythm section stuff laid down (with some amazing help from Chris Vicari), we were on to guitars, keys and vocals in week 3. This was last week, which went by in a total blur, as we powered through the remaining stuff that needed to be put down for the record. Allie Kelly, our guitarist, played some great stuff, and Kevin came up with some great production ideas to augment and improve on what we had. Later in the week, another new friend, Ryan Stubbs, came along and sprinkled some magic dust over various parts of the record with guitar parts that were so cool it didn’t really seem fair. I sang some of the most challenging vocals I’ve ever had to record (including one standing up, which was like my own personal Mount Everest), and then before we knew it, our parts were done, and it was time to go home.
It was fascinating to me that my songs, written (mostly) in my bedroom back in the UK, seemed to provoke such amazingly positive reactions from guys we met in Nashville. Being British seems to be cool right now, and I with my “bizarre” and “silly” chord progressions (I was accused of being Prog at one point) seem to have made an impression on some people. This was cool, obviously, but not just from a vanity point of view. It was cool because I was able to just be myself, write and sing the songs that God had given to me, and here I was on the other side of the world, thousands of miles from home, and they were resonating with people I barely knew. Quite a confidence boost that. I guess it struck me that we need to push in to the things that God has for us. Not to push past Him, or run away from His still small voice, or His leadership down the narrow path that leads to life, but to stay in step with Him, to know that His character is to be generous, abundantly, to His children, and to trust His provision. I’ve worked hard over the years, and pushed on all kinds of doors that were closed, and were meant to be closed, but here was one that was wide open, and had only been made so by the grace of God, not by my merit, or through my ability to blag my way into something. There’s a lesson for me there, and I would guess I’m not the only one! For all those times when I’ve doubted my calling, it strikes me that I’d missed what my calling actually was. I remember writing here once before that life is less about doing and more about being, that it’s not what we do that defines us, but who we are. That statement’s always been true, but it’s so much more real to me now. God made me for Himself, not to be a musician, a Church minister, or anything else. He doesn’t need me to make an album, but He gave me the gifts and the grace I need, so that, with a lot of help, I can make an album to honour Him. Really, it takes a lot of the pressure off when you look at it like that. God provides for us to do everything He asks of us, but the primary thing He asks of us is love. He is love, and it is Him in us who makes us able to love, so we need to focus on Him, learn how to love, and then do it, in whatever area of life we are.
So now, looking back on the trip, I have to conclude it was the best few weeks of my life. Not without challenges or even frightening moments, as I said before, but without a shadow of a doubt the best time I’ve ever experienced. There’s nothing like seeking your calling from God over a prolonged period of time, and then finding that you’re actually walking (or rolling) it out, something I experienced here. I know, talking to the other guys, we’ll never be the same for what we’ve gone through either. I’m excitedly waiting to hear first mixes in a couple of weeks, and already we’re itching to find the best partners to release the record with, so that you can all hear it, and can experience with us something of the beauty and power of the God that we love through these songs.
Really, this is about so much more than a record, or an experience. For me, this was an experience of God, blessing me, teaching me, refining me, challenging me, to see myself for who I am, to see Him for who He is, and to walk in His way, confidently approaching His throne of grace, as He has invited me to do, and then taking the love and blessing I have received and sharing it with the world. That is what we want to do with these songs, this band. It’s cool to have great experiences, but it’s even cooler to know that our faith is on the solid rock of Christ, and I hope that when we come to release this EP in the latter part of this year, you will be blessed as you hear it, and led to worship and the one who loves you most of all.
If you want to keep up with us and our progress over the next few months, you can at @ghosttreeband – we’ll be launching our Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation and everything else pages very soon!
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In the third part of our series of guest blogs from LTTM friend Haydon Spenceley, we get a progress update from Nashville on the recording process for Ghost Tree’s new album, and hear a warning on the toils of public bathrooms!
So, it’s about 8.45pm here in sunny Nashville. Today we scratch-tracked the remaining three songs for the record. These are Hope, Hallelujah and Save My Day. Hope and Save My Day are both new versions of songs that my old band, Freeslave, used to do. They’re both pretty different from the old versions, feeling like the fully formed versions of the songs that I always hoped would make it out one day. Hallelujah is a straight-up worship track which starts off all nice and British, and ends up gritty and messy. There’s talk of a Queen-like vocal ending to this one, which should be fun. As far as the music goes, I’ve had a pretty straightforward day, tracking keys and vocals for the tracks so that the other guys in the band can play over them, and so that Mark and Ben can track the final rhythm section parts over them tomorrow. As I write this, they are practicing the tracks, whilst Brandon, Kevin, Chris Vicari (a cool drummer mate of theirs) and I are listening/pointing and laughing when they make the occasional minor mistake. But these are by far not the most interesting or even dangerous things to happen today. Oh no, dear reader. Oh no.
You see, this morning, Kevin and Brandon had a meeting about something or other on Music Row. The guys in the band and I decamped to a noted local coffee chain for an early-morning snack. All was well until I decided that, prior to going into the deep, dark recesses of the studio (where there is no bathroom, dear reader) it would be wise to, well, you know, make the most of the opportunity of, well, peeing. I did what was needed, and then I lent on the grab rail in the bathroom to transfer, and then…. Well, I kinda don’t know what happened next. Suffice to say that not only did I end up on the floor, but the grab rail came with me. And not only that, but so did the whole of the toilet.The toilet actually moved. It moved. And then, just to add insult to injury, it auto-flushed. I got wet. It was not cool. See, being a wheelchair user, I assumed that the USA would be well set for me, in this modern age. Turns out this is not the case. The manager of said coffee place was verily worried I was going to get extremely litigious. Fortunately for her, and for me, I decided against that, and emerged with a mildly bruised bottom, and an even more bruised ego. I’m also now scared to use the bathroom in public.
As I’ve done my guide parts now, I’m free until Monday. So, Nashville types, what shall I do with my time?!
Join me next time to see if the bruise on my hip has developed into anything, whether I’ve been offered a free Mocha, and hear about our experiences tracking rhythm parts at Brown Owl.
And remember kids, don’t use a grab rail unless it’s securely nailed to the wall.
In the next part of our guest blog series from singer/songwriter Haydon Spenceley, we hear how his global collaborative recording process is progressing, and Haydon reflects on the collaboration between God and people.
Greetings everyone
Thanks for sticking with these blogs, even as they’re spread out by vast expanses of time. It gives you an insight in to the length of time it can take to make an album if nothing else!*
A quick update on what’s happened since we last spoke to kick things off. Keyboards have been recorded in Northampton. Guitars put down in Indianapolis, Nashville and Southampton vocals in South Carolina and Seattle. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a place for cowbell on this record, but there’s still time! We’re (the “we” I refer to here is an ever-increasing group of wonderful people) coming up to the mixing phase of the project, which is always exciting, as it’s the moment when I hear mixes for the first time that I can first sense the end in sight and the final realising of the vision I set out with just around the corner.
Because I’m not (by any means) a full time musician, the process of making this record has been long, perhaps even slow, but at each stage it seems to me that just the right thing has happened at the right time. From initial tracking in the summer with some of my closest friends, who are also hyper-talented, through to making wonderful new acquaintances this autumn, this process has been my favourite album making experience. I’ve been able to have Thom Daugherty (Agitproper, The Elms, as well as a tonne of other cool stuff) lend his signature style to the guitar parts. They’re awesome. I’ve achieved a long-held fanboyish ambition and had Anna-Lynne Williams (Trespassers William, Lotte Kestner, Ormonde) sing on a song. She is wonderful. I met Erick, who I blogged about last time, virtually, in New York, and had him lay down some incredible drum parts. Ben Lewis, who is a stupendous bloke, played bass like only a stupendous bloke can. Harun Kotch blew my mind with his special Harun Kotchness (you’ll know what I mean if you know him) and then there’s Kevin Bruchert. Kevin is a great producer and a great musician. He’s an even better friend.
There’re loads of other people who’ve been involved too. This has been the most collaborative recording process I’ve ever been involved in. Before this turns in to some kind of pretentious awards acceptance speech though I want to get to the point. It isn’t showing off, honest.
No, the point is this: as we come towards the home strait and I’m thinking over the experience of making this record, I’ve been struck by a couple of things. Namely the sheer privilege it is to have people from all over the world, who are stuffed full of talent, want to work with me on something that is so personal to me. It really is something to behold to think that these songs and thoughts that I’ve composed in the (mostly) darkest parts of the last couple of years, on my own, in my house, have been brought to life by such a wildly diverse bunch of people. Music has a wonderful way of forming communities. I’m fortunate to say that I’ve made a lot of friends, and deepened a lot of friendships I already had, in the process of making this album. This building and deepening of relationships makes the whole project worthwhile as far as I’m concerned.
Which leads me to the second point. Something I’m exploring is the wonder of collaboration between God and people. In a similar way to being blown away by how many people have wanted to work with me on this project, I’ve been increasingly caused to wonder at how God wants to relate to me, transform me, bless me, affirm me, challenge me. Really it’s all of it. We are made to live together, with God, together with other people, to love ourselves, not to be isolated from God or from one another, and certainly not to focus our anger inwards towards self-hatred. I’ve been prone to this in the past, and still struggle with it quite a bit. I justify it by thinking and saying things like “well, if you really knew what I was like, what I’d done, who I’d been, then you’d think the same”. The thing is though that God does see, know, even feel the consequences of all of that and yet the seemingly outrageous move He makes towards me, towards us, is one of transforming, of drawing together, towards living and being together, to bring in the kind of life and hope which has always been the plan.
It’s quite a thought, the process of making an album as a sign of the eschatological hope of humanity. Have some of that!
*For those of you who just want to know when the record’ll be out, I hope it will be the end of January!
Haydon Spenceley
In the second part of the Haydon Spenceley guest blog series on the journey of recording his new album, he updates us on the recording process – and how the band are connected despite being on opposite sides of the world. Haydon also explains how he is learning from God the importance of loving yourself.
Hope everyone out there in internet world is doing well. Dave and Jono from LTTM have been telling me that the response to my last post here was really strong so thanks for your encouragement. Feel free to translate that into listening to/buying the new record when it’s done!I wrote the first post for this about 12 days ago, the day before we started, in the midst of a heatwave. Now as I think about what to share with everyone today and it is pouring with rain outside, I’m really struck just how much has happened in a relatively short space of time. We’ve certainly packed a lot in. Here are some edited highlights:
- We spent some time in writing and pre-production, out of which came an extra, brand new song, Mirrors. Mirrors is almost certainly the most aggressive song I’ve ever written. I’m just about to sing the vocal for it when I’ve finished this, which will be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it!
- Kevin (who has an awesome record of his own, check it out) led worship with Ben and I, plus a couple of awesome friends, at Lee Community Church last week. It was an intensely powerful and moving time.
- We spent two nights Skyping in to a studio in New York on a phone whilst the drums for the record were recorded by a dude named Eric, and Brian, the engineer, entertained us by dancing with action figures (this really did happen). It is crazy to me that we’ve reached the point where you can connect to a studio via Skype and interact and work on parts for songs. Crazy. What’s even crazier is how good the drums sound. Eric is the man.
- Ben, our resident bass maestro and master of gyrations, nailed his bass parts for the whole record in a day. He, too, is the man.
- We spent a great day at Ford Lane in Arundel recording a rather splendid sounding upright piano. There is a lot of piano on this record.
- I’ve sung 5 out of 7 vocal performances. 2 more to go…
Much more important than all this, we have introduced Kevin and Christian, our visitors from the States, to the correct way to speak the English language. Kevin calls the toilet “the loo” now. Our work is done. We’ve eaten a lot of premium biscuits. In fact we’ve just eaten a lot.
We’ve also received generosity from loads and loads of people, and spend a lot of time hanging out with friends, new and old. It’s been a real eye-opener to me to see how many people have got behind this project in a variety of ways. Really humbling.
Much more important, even than all those things, is that we’ve spent a whole tonne of time talking about life, faith, hope and family. It’s been one of the key characteristics of this process and this project. God made us for relationship with Him, ourselves and one another. At various points in my life, I’ve been pretty rubbish at all three of those, with no real sign of improvement. However, these last two weeks have reinforced to me that we’re only really doing life anywhere near right when we get the concept of loving God, loving our neighbour and loving ourselves in to balance.
I’ve experienced much love from God, and my neighbours, whilst making this record, and it’s been fantastic to see the community around these songs grow and involve people all over the world. More than that though, I’m having to learn the discipline of loving myself, something I find pretty hard for a variety of reasons. Without love for myself it’s not possible to love God. Without love for God I can’t love others. Without love for others I can’t love anything or anyone. It’s a huge deal. As God is love (it’s not just an emotion He has, but a state of being) He can’t not love me. He can’t not love you. He wants to give you a new identity, a new name. Son or daughter of God. Cherished, beloved, adored, set free to be who He made you to be.
All the other identities we give ourselves, or have given to us, even the important ones like husband/wife, friend, brother/sister, parent or whatever, these come second, a distant second, to that of child of God. It’s bonkers that it’s ours for the taking. Seeing the working out of this in action, as we all, individually and collectively, try to learn what is to live and work, walk and love, as children of God, is a real privilege, as well as being a little scary. It’s a privilege because I get to marvel as I watch God at work in a whole bunch of other people (including some who don’t know Him yet, or even think He exists). It’s scary because when it’s all said and done, it’s easier for me to retreat behind the identity of being a musician, or even of calling myself a failure or a disappointment, a disabled person. These things don’t define me though. God does. I wish we were part of a community of faith who really got hold of this.
We have two more days here to finish the vocals and do some guitars and a few other bits and bobs, before we disperse around the country and the world to finish the record, and get back to our (long-suffering) families. As we get back to some semblance of normality I’m pretty hopeful that some of the spark of hope, of identity, of freedom and joy, will go with us. Wouldn’t that be something.
It’s unlikely that I’ll be remembered in history for my songs (although that would be nice) but wouldn’t it be great if we, this generation, were remembered in history as people who knew, as far as they could, that we were loved, so that we could love, that we’d heard the call of God to shine His light, love and hope into the lives of those who are around us. If the songs on this record go any distance to helping you to do that in your life, in your family, in your workplace, then it’ll be a job well done.
Haydon Spenceley
Two years ago British singer/songwriter Haydon Spenceley wrote a series of guest blogs for LTTM about his band Ghostree going to Nashville to make an album. In this honest and revealing first blog of a new series, Haydon starts the process again with a fresh set of ideas.
Around two years ago, I blogged a few times describing the experiences of recording the Ghostree EP with Kevin Bruchert and Brandon Perdue in Nashville, TN. The times and experiences those blogs chronicled were some of the most enjoyable and exciting, challenging and stretching experiences of my life. I loved the whole experience, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Reading the first blog back this morning, I remembered some of how I felt as I wrote. We were excited, we thought something was going to happen.
Well, something did happen. The EP we made is, I think, pretty flipping good (I still like it, unusual for me!). We got some of the best reviews you could ever hope for, from all over the world. We’ve had opportunities to play and talk to a whole bunch of people, particularly at the wonderful Big Church Day Out this year (you probably didn’t see us, Rend Collective Experiment were playing at the same time, but we loved it anyway, and so did the discerning hordes who spent the afternoon with us). A lot of musicians from bands I have had fanboyisms about have told me they love our record. A lot of other people have too. But here’s the rub, pretty much no-one bought it. This isn’t a complaint. I’m not whining or muttering or anything else. We made a record, no-one bought it. Happens all the time. There are bands and artists massively more talented than me who will tell you a similar story. My point is that the something I was hoping for when Ghostree started, which was to build enough to have a following and make enough money to make another record, to do something that the Christian “scene” here hadn’t seen for quite some time, just never happened. It probably wasn’t ever going to happen.
Fast-forward two years, and I sit at the beginning of another recording process. Where there was drive and focus on the last record, this time I’m relaxed to the point of not even having written all the songs yet (we start tomorrow). This isn’t a Ghostree record. This is something else. Something new. Something that I’m very excited about. Friends from my musical past are joining together just to make a record and see what comes out. It’ll probably end up coming out as a solo record, but I really have no idea. There’s no plan. We’re actually making the music because we like making music. What a revolutionary idea.
There’s a tendency in my thinking as a kind of lapsed conservative evangelical to think that it’s only ok to do something if there’s a clear vision, or if God has confirmed the plan in triplicate. I don’t say this to be facetious. This is actually how I’ve lived and thought in the past, and I could happily proof-text you into the middle of next week with regard to why this is a good way of doing things. The thing is, the last two years have taught me (amongst a whole lot, I’d recommend a spell at theological college if you want your life turned upside down) that sometimes it’s ok to do things because we enjoy them too. I’m excited about this record. We have some really good songs. I’m more excited to hang out with my friend Kevin, and a bunch of other awesome dudes and their families for two weeks and to see what God is going to do.
I don’t get everything right. I get quite a lot wrong actually, but so much has happened over the last couple of years and I’m looking forward to sharing some new songs about all those experiences with you.
All of this might sound a bit serious. Sorry about that. It’s what training to be a vicar, getting engaged and realising you’re not as cool as you thought you were over the course of a two year period will do to someone. I hope that the record we’re embarking on will be something that people will enjoy listening to. I hope I’ll like it too (!) and most of all I hope that it honours God. It’s such a privilege to be given the gift of writing songs and the opportunity to sing them. It’s so much more of a privilege to have so many people who want to stand with me and make something from my ideas. When I started in bands back when I was 18 I would never have thought I would have had all the experiences I have had, and I’m profoundly grateful for them. If this is the last record I get to make, I hope it makes a difference somehow, preferably an eternal one, but I’ll leave how that happens to God.
So, I’m making a new record. Kevin Bruchert is producing. We’ve got a cast of thousands primed all over the world ready to be involved, and no idea what to do with it when it’s done. What could possibly go wrong?
Haydon Spenceley