Friday 2 March 2007

I also have a confession... (Matt)

My own Influences to some maybe be very obvious, however there are very specific songs that kick me off in a particular direction with most of our tracks.

Loser - This was spawned from re-discovering an old Gary Numan song called "We Take Mystery (To Bed)" I guess the main synth line is pretty similar but the rest of the song is very different. The original Gary Numan version I think is a blatant rip off of Japan, the bass, synths and even the singing style is a pretty obvious rip.

Millionaire - This started life after hearing a track by Matinee Club (fka - The Modern) called "Sometimes". It was the driving bass-line that I liked in particular and this became the main component when writing Millionaire. There isn't anything similar about these tracks anymore other than you could probably sing the chorus to "Sometimes" over Millionaire. Many people have said that Millionaire reminds them of Yazoo, they are a big influence but I don't hear anything in this track to suggest that.

Seen the light - Depeche Mode "Just Can't Get Enough" for the main synth sound.

Sometimes - I think the bass-line reminds me of a Pet Shop Boys song, probably the one they did for the theme tune to the 80's Clothes Show programme. Although I like the PSBs I have never really thought of them as an influence.

Step Back - There is nothing that really influenced this when I first put the track together. After recording the vocals I changed some of the sounds as I wanted to create a very electronic feel. I really liked the sound of The Human Leagues last album "Secrets" so sonically I used this as a reference point.

Home - This started out with a completely different backing track which in part was influenced by a song by a band called Hard Corps, they were around in the late 80's and supported Depeche Mode but didn't really have that much commercial success. After recording the vocals I felt it didn't really work yet I really liked the vocals. I then worked on another three other versions of the track and finally came up with one that we liked. Listening to it now it reminds me loosely of an early track by Depeche Mode called "The Sun and the Rainfall" , in my opinion a very underrated track.

Please - We are going to drop this from the album and probably the live set. This started out as an old Minithin song called Keith, there are some obvious Yazoo references in this. I really like the song but we feel it's not really ours as the lyrics and original vocal melody where written by Stuart Simpson.

1 comment:

Cubwolf said...

Can i just add that Secrets by The Human League is a fantastic album and you are right it sounds amazing!
Looking forward to your new album.
Dave