The whole thing started when the morning show got a make over; they received a completely new soundscape with new jingles and background tracks. Well their main background track (which is a driving rock electronic mix) was used for the shows TV commercial and the music gained some questions about what song was used there. This happened also when the new soundscape went on air. So I suggested that we actually make a song out of it.
The idea was thrown around a bit before it was agreed that the song had to be made. I started out by doing some rearranging on the material. The original background track consisted of an easily loopable elements which I divided into verses and a chorus. This way I built the basis for the track.
But lets have a look at the music of the song before going deeper into the actual making of the song. The strongest element of the song is the beat, which is forward driving and massive in sound. It is layered from four different drum layers (read kits) ranging from a punchy rock kit to an electronic drum'n'bass kit. There are no breaks from the beat during the song. When I had started to make the original background track a few of the descriptions I got were ballsy, in-your-face, large. The beat is all of these.
On top of the beat there's a slap bass. I originally selected the cheapest sounding synthetic slap bass I could find to give it the feel of, well, adult movies. It worked well with the background track and I saw no reason to change it. What I did with the song is that I added a distorted electric guitar on top of the bass to give it more power and even more rhythm.
The acoustic piano playing long, sharp notes and chords from the original track stayed the same as did the electronic beeping sound I used to create a lead melody with. For the song I gave them a backing with ambientesque pads to have a more airy feel in the music. I also wrote an ever growing brass section for the song. From the first chorus to the last the sound of the song grows larger and larger.
When I had rearranged the song I had a few meetings with the morning show team so that they could have their say on the lyrics.It was decided that the track should revolve around Trash King and his Trash Kingdom (I won't reveal who he is, for his vengeance would be far too gruesome). With this decision it became clear that the lyrics would revolve around trash journalism.
The lyrics evolved to form the imaginary weekend of a star persona "Suosikkijuontaja" (that's Finnish for star host). The lead vocalist would be Trash King who belts out one outragious scoop after another and the morning show team responds to the scoops with your somewhat standart celebrity answers that end getting them deeper and deeper into dire straits. That's the basic idea of the lyrics.
Then the date was set when we'd record the lyrics. The day started with some choir singing as I had the guys and their producer chant out the chorus. I have to admit, it sounded just as horrible as I had imagined and then Tom led out a few choruses with some freakishly high notes in there. It was really disturbing. But I knew I had recorded the perfect chorus for the song. Luckily Trash King wasn't in the house yet so Tom was spared being ridiculed for his "masculine" performance.
After the choir session I remained in the studio with Tom, who had a tighter schedule than the rest of the guys. I got a few really good reactions from him, but the coup de grace of the day was joining of a vision I had had and an instrument Tom owns. The vision I had was a fusion jazzish instrument solo over just the beat, bass and guitar. And the instrument: a bagpipe. That's right: a jazz bagpipe over a slapbass and distorted guitar. I don't really know which of us is the sicker man, me for dreaming it or Tom for going along with it. Well, it's still probably me since I had Tom play various length licks from which I edited the final solo performance. It's probably one of the most absurd and disturbed musical things I've done. Seriously. No really. Listen to the track and you'll know what I mean. Moving on.
The rest of the recording session went as planned. I got really good stuff out of Juuso and Matti, whose performance dropped me to the floor a few times. Then came the dreaded moment of recording Trash King. I have never heard such things in my life. It still gives me the shivers. He truly is the king of trash.
The recording and vocal editing day ended up being 11 hours long. It was a long session, but I'm glad I did it since the next day I could just start finishing the song. First I put all the vocals in place then divided them into three sections divided by choruses. Between the last two sets of choruses I placed the bagpipe solo. The final thing I did was to create and intro and outro for the track containing rantings from Trash King. Then the mixing and the song would be ready for listening.
I was really nervous about what the morning team would say when they heard the final result. I was relieved when the guys started laughing out loud. Then I knew they liked it. And with that the song was finished.
Trash King fist. YleX AAMU - Suosikkijuontaja
Gear I used for this track:
DAWs and editors:
- Cakewalk Sonar 8.5
- Steinberg Nuendo 4
Samplers, instruments and effects:
- NI Kontakt 3
- NI Battery 3
- NI Guitar Rig 3
- NI FM8
- Cakewalk Dimension Pro
- Kjaerhus Master Limiter
- Melda Equalizer
- PerfectSpace
Libraries:
- Vienna Horizon Series Overdrive
- Project SAM Brass
- NI Battery 3 Library
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