People // Aaron C. // Blog

Hey everyone

It's been a long time since I've been on here and even longer since I posted a blog so first off, a huge apology to those whose sessions I am involved with.   You all know who you are and I assure you I'll be getting in touch with you all soon.

Been busy with a few musical projects of my own outside of Indaba that I thought you all might be interested in.  There's one in particular that I thought would be appropriate to talk about here of all places seeing that this is an online collaboration website.

Here it goes....

A little over a year ago I was trying to promote my demo of my solo metal project DAVOLA on myspace www.myspace.com/joeydavola (to those who're interested) and after sometime I recieved a message from a guy named Jeremy H.  Jeremy like myself, was an aspiring songwriter getting his chops together after leaving his former band Audkik www.myspace.com/audkik  back in Los Angeles to head to Switzerland of all places.  Ready to make a new start, Jeremy heard my demos on myspace and asked if I was interested in contributing vocals to a heavy song he had written.  I immediately jumped at the chance before I heard a note.  Upon hearing the music I realized that there was a similarity in our writing styles in that were both rooted in "real song forms" which isn't always the case in extreme music.  Despite us never having met in person, there was a creative chemistry there and from it a partnership was formed. 

We would communicate almost exclusively through email and send each other  wav files, get feedback, trade ideas and reshape things as we went along.  To this day we've had about three conversations by phone.........yeah, we'll have to meet one of these days.

Fast forward about six months and five songs later.  Both Jeremy and I knew we both created something together that we could both be proud of so what's next?  Ah the studio..........did I mention he lives in Switzerland while I'm in the U.S.? 

Here's where it gets interesting.....

Jeremy who came from the well connected L.A. metal scene as well as being the socialite he is made many friends among the musician circles.  Two of which helped make the recordings possible.  While touring in Switzerland, Jeremy ended up making friends with Cristian Machado and Laz Pina of latin metal band Ill Nino www.myspace.com/illnino and talked to them about music, recording ect ect.  Machado and Pina said that as soon as he had the material to get a hold of them in thier studio in New Jersey www.myspace.com/soundwarsproducitons  and make it happen.

So, here I am.  A kid from New Hampshire talking to a guy I've never met in person about heading down to NJ to record with ILL NINO???????

Yeah, I was skeptical too I must admit but sure enough, I found myself in Hoboken, NJ throwing down in the studio with two guys I look up to immensely in this buisness.  The experiece was and is something that you just can't put a price tag on and I wouldn't trade for anything.  Many lessons were learned in the studio from tips on layering vocals, recording techniques and advice from Cristian ultimately made me a better vocalist.........not to mention Screaming for six hours a night........damn that first night was brutal ha ha throat was on fire.

Meantime, Jeremy was holed up at "The Garage" studio in Zurich, Switzerland recording guitars and bass clean to send to Cristian and Laz to re amp in thier stuido to get some great sounds.  In addition, the drum patterns Jeremy wrote were "re amped" in a way by Cristian using some insane new toontrack software.  Despite us never being in the room together and using programmed drums, the music has a completely organic feel to it and makes me feel like I'm in a club watching the brutality unfold.

So now months after the recordings have been finished, we are proud to announce that our project dubbed "THE RISING" is now up and running on myspace.

www.myspace.com/therisingmetal3  Head there to check out videos from the sessions, read up on the rest of the story (yes there's more) as well as listen to two of the songs "Unseen Unheard" as well as the tune that started this crazy ride "Obscurity".  You can also listen to that song on my profile here.

So there's my crazy story.  Hope you enjoy it and if you take anything from it, hopefully it will be to trust your instincts and follow your intuition and just .......well collaborate.  Not that this kind of thing happens everyday but I know I never thought in a million years I'd be writting to you all about what I had done over the course of 2008.

Thanks for reading and check out those sites!

Aaron

P.S.  Feel free to contact me here and my other sites about session work (in person or online) my rates and availability.

Thanks