Great Musicians Love Playing Great Songs
One of the benefits of working in LA as a songwriter is being able to work with musicians, singers, engineers and producers who are gifted story tellers themselves.
And it still amazes me how invested these people are when they work on the songs of others.
My first experience of this was when I was producing the Pure Joy album. I had met David Raven only once before and knew him really by reputation. “You should get Dave on this project” people would tell me. “He’s just right for the music you are making.”
And these people were right.
Dave arrived at Bill Schnee’s Studio on Lankershim Blvd with what appeared to be a truck load of drum equipment. As I played and sang each song to him just on acoustic guitar, he would pull out of his Kit Bag different snare & kick drums, toms and cymbals, searching for the perfect instrument for each song arrangement. During the first run through with the rest of the band he might change the snare again, or re-tune the toms.
The other musicians behaved in the same manner. Changing guitars and amps and speaker cabinets and various keyboards and synths, all based on the kind of song we were recording. It was all done with such care that my experience that day was one of feeling loved.
'The song is everything' is oft quoted and, because these musicians may have worked (the day before) with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Carlene Carter, Nora Jones, Keith Richards and their like, the songwriting bar is set extremely high.
These days, just knowing I will be working alongside these wonderfully seasoned music creators incentivizes me to work that bit harder, to take my writing gift even more seriously, to fuss and fight over each word, phrase, chord change… avoiding cliches… and trite little happy stories.
It is the ultimate 'two thumbs up' when the musicians hired for the session say either verbally or by their enthusiastic performance that they liked the song.
Check out David Raven's story about working with a good songwriter.
Or, if you’d like to hear Dave explain his process of designing drum sounds for each studio recording, become a member of The Rehearsal Room. You’ll find a bunch of lessons and conversations on Music, Songwriting, Creativity and Home Studio Production including one such conversation with Dave.
