Well ladies & gentlemen, the time has come for us to release unto the world our first E.P., cunningly entitled "Maximum dB" for your aural delight. Made in our homes in Blackwood, Hamburg, Birmingham & Bristol, these 4 tracks have taken us hours of blood, sweat & tears. We are mighty happy with the way they have turned out, & we hope you like them to.
By way of background history, this project started when Jan Buchholz, who mixed the King & Queen Of Sorry E.P. started chatting to me about the music he loved. Having agreed that there ain't too much wrong with Motley Crue's Shout At The Devil, I sent him some scraps of riffs to see what he thought. Pretty much immediately we started filling the gaps to make these ideas into fully fledged songs.
Freedom To Rock was first on the slab. This track was originally labeled as Kiss Of Life, but once the track was fleshed out into a song & the melody sussed, words were written & it became apparent that this should be a song about the joys of rocking out when your alone or somewhere new. A guide vocal was sent to the wonderfully talented Kathryn Mash, my musical partner in crime in King & Queen Of Sorry, which she sang fantastically as always. She manages to convey the power required for a rock song like this, without losing out on the melody. She really is an awesome singer & we are blessed to have her in this band. There was a spot for a solo which Jan or I could not realistically fill, so I called out to the finest virtuoso I have ever met, my old pal Andy Gregory. Andy can play faster than Einstein can think, but he knows when to slow it down & strip it back. The boy is a star & he absolutely crushes the solo in this song.
The second song we worked on was the opener for the E.P., Fourth Of July. This is a typical boy meets girl, shenanigans ensue type song, with a big riff running through it. We ahem "borrowed" the church bell in the riff: bonus points for telling me from which song it is taken...
We thought we should slow it down for the third offering, so we went with First Light. This is a song I've had hanging around in my head for a few years now, & I'm glad it has finally been recorded. I played the clean guitars here & Jan played the distorted ones: this is the only track we divided in this way & I think it works well. Coming home from a road trip is a well worn path for a rock band, & that's where the inspiration for that one came from. 2 fine solos from Andy on this one, & a brilliant bluesy vocal from Lady K. Couldn't be happier with it.
We decided the final track on the E.P. should be just a blasting rocker, & I think we certainly achieved that with (I Won't Be Your) Carnival Queen. This is a straight 80's riff - I wanted it to be Crue meets ZZ Top meets Debbie Harry - & we got that in spades. It was probably the hardest for me to write vocals on as it's very much from a female perspective. It ends the E.P. as I wanted it to: big bombastic & uncompromising. I like it a lot.
We came up with the idea of Maximum dB as an E.P. title as it has a few connotations, decibel or DeadBeat Boulevard. The decibel wave was also agreed upon as part of the logo, which Kathryn's husband James designed for us (thanks James!). We added the wave To a 1970's picture of Brooklyn & made a logo which is meant to look like a neon sign. The concept was faded glamour, & I think the image conveys that.
So, what more is there to say? We had an absolute blast making it, & we all love it to death. I received 3 messages from the guys the day before the release: Kathryn "I feel like I'm 21 when I'm singing this stuff": Andy "this is my dream band": Jan "I love this band". Ditto to all of the above guys. I thank you all individually for making this happen. Please give it a try - you can download it for free from:
http://deadbeatboulevard.bandcamp.com/
