tonights session was one of the best yet. Very Ines efforts are brilliant and I just love hearing people's own songs, what they are about and then listening to them.

I'm starting to see a lot more people jamming together and people tell more stories about the songs which just love.

it beginning to become more frequent that when someone plays a song you get transported away and lose the concept of what's around you, I think they call it getting lost in the moment. That what it is all about.

​im going to introduce some new original material in April and see the reaction.

There is something special about the Dreadnought in Bathgate. I dont know if it's because i class it as my local or if its just the fact that its marinated in rock! (you can tell ive been spending too much time in the kitchen these days)

The King Lot were supporting Romeos Daughter and i have to say i think they are really great. The guitar player has such a strong sound. The song they have called Enemy is just brilliant and very close to what i have been trying to achieve with one of my songs, i think thats why i liked it so much, it was one of those moments when you go ohhhh yaaaa.... whats that called.. check them out here http://www.romeosdaughter.co.uk

The gig was areally cool one. I wasnt ready for it and i made so many mistakes, really big ones! forgetting my lyrics, squealing coz i didnt support my breathing, hitting wrong notes. I even pulled my guitar lead out at one point. However in the advice of Uncke King Jizzo pearl i just laughed it off and carried on. No point in beating yourself up as long as you make sure it doesnt happen again.... well lets see.

I think im going to put my percison in and get the pick ups upgraded to quater pounders. they need upgraded..

Id love to say that im happy to be back recording after a couple of days off due to being ill but its not happening tonight. Sunday Monday Tuesday were bad days as i was ill as anything. Total man flu bug but was floored for a few days and just couldn't get the energy up so i decided to rest. What i did have was a lot of time to relisten to what i have done and plan what i needed to do to go back and fix for the first round of vocal takes. 

Tonight I decided to get the last one done but everytime i was singing with the right atmosphere, water warm up everything you can imagine.. its just not the right night. One thing i will say is setting up the vocal studio has been the best thing ever but im starting to wonderif there is a danger of over analysing things too much. 

I think sometimes the feeling just inst right and having done the demos and rewritten things so much and now moved on to writting new material for another album is getting in the way, lets just get this one done first sweeney boy. 

Time to pack up for tonight nd come back to it 2mrw. What a cool thing it is to haev this set up nd just go for it as and when you like. jsut a shame i dont work better with beer.

Plan for the next few days is get a couple of vocal takes down pick the best ones with new melodies and record a cracker.

For a while now ive always been a fan of distorted guitars and harmonies. I remember the first time i heard the Wildhearts play Metallica type riffs with what sounded like the beatles. I love it i love. I always put harmonies in my songs however writting a good three peice harmony can be difficult. When i take the 1 3 and 5th it doesnt sound right, When i take the 1st the 5th and the octave it sound safe. But in this song i want to be clever i want it to be proper harmonies.

Ive been working on the chorus for an hour tonight and the low harmony is not sounding good but i think its because im swapping the higher and the middle over and crossing into their parts.

​I need to do more research on this before recording anymore so the rest of tonight im going to watch some instructional videos and see what i can get for tomorrows recording session. Il get this!

Over the last few nights ive been doing differnt vocal takes to try and get a great performance. Ive taken feedback on board which i felt was going to be better and certainly when ive been signing slighty differnt words live it seems to fit, however upon listening back to what ive done tonight im not greatly overjoyed with it.  I think this is when you have to follow what your heart tells you and do what you want to do in the song when your a writer.

I can certainly say that i write for myself, i write how i speak which really is far from proper, but at the end of theday thats who i am. Ive been noticing im flat on a few things a few words, i think its got something to do with my vocal mix. Im going to look into mixing for vocal takes and try a few different things. 

Tonight i was working on Hearts on Fire or My Hearts on Fire. The song deals with the feeling of obsession and that burning feeling of needing someone where you reallt feel like your hearts on fire. The words are " My hearts on Fire, burning to the rythnm of love, My herats on fire coz i cant get get enough" In the recording ive been singing "Hearts on fire" Instead of "My Hearts on fire" I feel its losing the orginal feeling for me so im going to record it again to see what it sounds like getting back to the orginal way.

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Tonight i have been recording the vocals to the song for the new King Lot album " A World Without Evil" Its probably the closest i wanted to get to a Brice Dickinson, Sebastian bach type operatic singing. So as you can imagine its pretty difficult. It really all is about placement of breath and keeping those notes clear. ive been listening to a good bit of Metallica latley so i feel im naturaly putting grit in the mix. Im not sure if i should be doing this as im swapping it to clean a little to fast and starting to over think it.

This so is slow and heavy and so its a little different to what ive written to before. I was going to speed it up but i do that all the time and its time to force it to stay like that. i did research on some slow heavy songs i like and found they are all around the 80 to 100bpm. its so easy to cop out and say it needs to be faster.

First draft and listening back vocals are a little flat so il need to jump on it again and devote more time. I did a good warm up but il warm up to the Dorian mode for this one next time. A little more work on this to get my feelings out.

Positive points tonight are that the longer notes ive been doing in the song are sounding stronger and more professional.

It was a busy busy year 2016. The start to 2017 was any quieter. I kicked off the year with two packed out shows with Tyketto in Newcastle and Glasgow. They were amazing simply becasue of the success with the single Wings. Danny the signer of Tyketto asked if we would like to get up and sing with them on the track. I was like "YEEAAHHH" however i didnt expect him to say okay so you take the second verse! OMG this is a dream come true. 

Ive been listening to Tyeketto since i was 18. I remeber those nights in Edinburgh Rock scene, especialy Stones Rock bar just off Princes Street, those were the days. To get the cjance to sing side by side was a total dream. Its always nice to meet these guys who I looked up to , and still do, and find they aint plonkers.

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im feeling on fire just now with the amount of demos Iv been doing. Just having a designated area to do this makes things so much easier.

Iv been redoing demos as the new album will be in Eb instead of the D or Db I was looking for. I really wanted to do things in this key however there was so many issues that was popping up it just made it easier to go with the flow.

With some of the new songs Iv chosen Iv been pushing myself vocally so now that I've tuned up, I've had to shift a few key changes around. Tonight i did two demos on "A world with out evil" the original was in a drop D tunning but if I remember rightly it was in Cm so I did a new one in Am which seemed really low and another in Bm. The tiff has had to change but Iv still followed the rhythmic pattern concentrating on 4/4 beat with a slide at the end. This is well used in early 2000 metal or maybe earlier.

Iv Iv been reading a lot about mixing vocal lines together and the real trick seems to be in keeping one line straight while the other carries the melody. It's worked well for me in this song. Time to review it in the morning.

I had a run through with the King lot boys on the acoustic version of wings. It went well however I had a few problems on singing and changing chords. When I reahearsed this I didn't have any problems but when I changed my finger position the fun began for me.

By by keeping my pinky on the high octave note I was able to hold the position and only change my three other fingers, so much easier.