Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track Part 12 of 12

12. Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere

Well, it’s been a while coming but here is the last installment of my guide to ‘A Coming of Age’, our second long-player.

The closing track, ’Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’ (to be said in the style of Bob Dylan) took some careful attention to get right but I always felt it was very important to the feel of the album. It’s a song in three parts: there’s the Sam Cooke ‘Bring It On Home To Me’ style opening with saucy Stax horns, the Edif Piaf / Scott Walker/ Gainsbourg over the top middle section where the key shifts quite dramatically, and finally the psychedelic-weirdo-wig-out end section.

Lyrically I suppose it’s an acceptance of outsider status and as ever, I really love a jaunty song with painful words, so the second verse is completely nihilistic. “Without you I’m nothing, alone I can’t win, without you I would probably do myself in”. It makes me laugh when I hear the desperation in there and it’s a fine line between melancholy and maudlin parody but one I hope I don’t cross too often. I think these sort of feelings need to be treated with a little humour, otherwise it just gets too dense and well, impenetrable. Even though this record is, overall, lyrically dark, it does end with a line of hope too.

The end section only existed as an idea until we hit Lynchmob Studios. For a while it was really difficult to convey what I imagined. I wanted a hint of the orchestral crescendo at the end of The Beatles ‘A Day In The Life’ but without the crescendo, Quite difficult to describe and to do in practise. It’s hard to keep movement in over a minute of rolling thunder menace, certainly the longest Lucky Soul have ever gone without having any vocals over the top, I think we recorded about 2 and half minutes of it, so there was some heavy editing needed. Ivor and I had a whale of a time down in The Dairy, Brixton just letting the delay pedals loose. It was really nice to just let go and see what happens for once as most of our stuff is so meticulously planned and heavily demoed.

When I was writing the strings it all got a bit intense listening to this unease over and over and over again, late at night with the headphones on. At one dark moment I ripped the headphones off and threw them out the door, convinced it was sending me mad. On reflection I realise that it was getting as powerful as I wanted it to, but I recommend that you not listen to it for 24 hours in a row!

The voice you can at hear at the end is a 1938 recording of a woman called Lucy Bigalow talking to (I think) the East India Broadcasting Corporation about The Theramin, a hand movement affected, electronic, oscillating instrument made famous in The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’. She is imagining hundreds of Theramin players, each one “like a dancer making patterns on the stage”. I had to find a place for it and it’s a nod to The Smiths ‘Rubber Ring’. Oh if I got halfway there…

One reason I like this track is that it has almost everyone who played on the record on it and was recorded in every studio we used (see previous posts). A nice way to finish. It’s maybe the least obvious thing we’ve done and opened up a lot of avenues to explore. I think it ends with a big “to be continued” cliff hanger sign. What happens next? Well wait and see but rest assured you won’t have to wait three years this time.

I hope you enjoy the album, I’m not gonna lie and say it was easy to make, it took a lot of stamina and stubbornness to get it done, but I know we tried our best and came back with the warm, rounded, album we set out to make. We’ve received some lovely messages from you telling us how our music has got you through break-ups, exams, long journeys etc. and it’s amazing to know we can have that effect. That’s what we wanted when we started out. Thanks for sticking with us.

Andrew

Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere by Lucky Soul

News : Up Next!

Thanks to everyone who came to see us at The Hoxton Bar and Kitchen in London on Tuesday. If you weren’t there you missed a great night with excellent supports and DJs and of course our drummer Mr. Atkins dressed as the devil. We all lost pounds in the sweltering heat, but the reception was still marvellous and a good time was had by all.

Next up it’s a pan-European weekend with our second appearance at the Lemonpop festival in Murcia, Spain on September 4 followed by a return to Berlin, Germany to headline Saturday night of Let’s Kiss and Make Up’s Indiepop Days Berlin Festival in Kreuzberg.

Our recent shows in both Spain and Madrid have been amazing so we’re really looking forward to coming back to both countries. Come and see us and say hello

LSx

News : New Single and New London Show (What You Gonna Do?)

We’re very pleased to officially announce that our next single will be live favourite and Northern Soul barn-stormer ‘Up In Flames’, as chosen by you, the fans, on our Facebook page. If you’re new to us and haven’t got our latest album ‘A Coming Of Age’ yet, then you can listen to the track and read about its genesis on Andrew’s blog.

To celebrate the release of our painfully hot single we’ll be playing our only London date of the summer at the painfully cool Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen on August 10th. It will be a thoroughly indie-pop affair with main support coming from some-very-special-guests-that-we’ll-announce-next-week, second support coming from the just as special but less mysterious The Lodger. Spinning platters on the night will be our old friend Ian Watson from legendary club night How Does It Feel To Be Loved? and Pocketbooks.

Tickets are available at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/86890 priced £9 adv.

We want the night to go down like as house on fire so why not come in fancy dress? The theme? ‘Flames’ of course! There’ll be a prize for everyone who makes an effort, so get your thinking caps on.

After successfully predicting the World Cup finalists, octopus-style, with recent shows in Spain and Holland, we move onto third place with a special acoustic show in Berlin’s Bang Bang Club next Tuesday July 20th. Uraguay, you know where we are.

Finally a big thanks to everyone who came to see us on our recent festival stint and particularly our debut Glastonbury performance which was an absolute dream come true for us all. Thanks to Billy Bragg for inviting us too.

See you in your flaming outfits

News : Festival News

We’re very excited and honoured to be playing Glastonbury for the first time at the personal invitation of none other than Mr. Billy Bragg.

We’ll playing on Sunday 27th June on the Leftfield stage at 6pm. See you there!

We’ll also be playing some slightly smaller but fun festivals over the rest of June and July. See below for the full list.

16 June 2010
Beach Break Live Festival
19 Jun 2010
Sala Caracol, Madrid
27 Jun 2010
Leftfield Stage @ Glastonbury Festival
10 Jul 2010
Lounge On The Farm Festival
11 Jul 2010
Basingstoke Live Festival

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track Part 11 of 12

11. Our Heart

I wanted something really romantic but upbeat on the album. Of course it’s still very angsty, as is our way but pretty uplifting too. For a long time this song was only known as ‘Ahhhhhhhh” with no lyrics for the chorus, just a ‘ahhh-ahhh-ah-ahhh’ which eventually morphed into the words “Our Heart” and gave the song a much better sense of place.

It started with another descending piano line, although this one was more from a Brian Wilson production (The Honeys’ ‘He’s a Doll’) than the other Bobbie Gentry stalkers on the album. There’s some really subtle rhythmic differences on each line in the verse – one of those things that you’d probably never notice, but was quite important to keep the song moving along.

Lyrically it centers around the line “I exist, but that’s it, without you”. It’s kind of paraphrasing Scott Walker in his amazing documentary, 30th Century Man, where a French journalist asked what he’d been doing in an eleven year gap between albums. Scott replies “I’ve existed. That’s it” which I though was brilliantly vague whilst absolutely nailing the point at the same time.

The last forty seconds are probably my favourite bit on the album. Sometimes there’s a massive gulf between what goes on in my head and what ends up as the finished piece but this was exactly as I imagined it. The end section is edited together from about three minutes of improvisation by the boys so it has a lovely non-linear feel, spiraling away into the distance in a similar way to ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ by The Smiths, lots of interwoven guitar lines and clattering drum fills. In fact when I was mastering, the engineer said “He’s playing lead drums there” which is about right.

The Stockholm Strings are in fine form here as ever, particularly on the instrumental break where I wanted a ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ crossed with Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ dancing strings feel. You should hear them naked; stunning.

For me, the end of this song is the embodiment of the feeling you get when you’re first in love, those early days when your heart’s about pounding its way out of your chest and nothing can touch you. Total certainty and uncertainty at the same, thrilling time.

Our Heart by Ruffa Lane Records Studio Rundown Part 3.

6. Gizzard Recordings, Bow, East London

Gizzard was recommended to me by our keyboard player Art (he’s recorded a lot there) and we did pretty much all of his pianos, Fender Rhodes and a bit of Hammond organ there.

It’s predominantly an analogue recording studio and most of the gear is great vintage stuff – mad old spring reverbs, reel to reel tape machines, huge ex-BBC monitoring speakers and a mixing desk that used to belong to Mungo Jerry. The live room is straight out of the early sixties with its orange and brown decor and it feels like it’s been there a long time, even though it’s less than ten years old.

By far and away the best thing about the place is the owner Ed Deegan. For me it’s always lovely to meet someone who is totally into what they’re doing, not driven by money but by love. It’s definitely his place and a sense of pride pervades throughout everything that goes on there, not like the cold and cynical revolving door of some studios.

Ed used to work at another, more famous analogue studio called ‘Toerag’ where The White Stripes recorded Elephant. From what I gather though, Gizzard is a much more relaxed environment than its better known but more uptight cousin. I’d recommend it to anyone.

7. Soulsville SE5, Camberwell, London

Our place! We did all the vocals and percussion and some little bits of guitar between here and my flat. We hired in a ludicrously expensive Neumann U67 mic and some Neve pre amps, but got the gear at a week at a time for about the price of half a day in the studio. So a) it took all the pressure off financially and we could take as much time as we wanted to get it right, and b) we could come and go as we pleased. when you’re doing vocals, it’s important to be as relaxed as possible.

This all went swimmingly until the mad guy in the unit next to us pinned me up against the wall and started shouting at me about evil spirits and time travel. After a couple of days of this I got quite freaked out by it and we finished off at home.

Soulsville is small but sounds really nice as it’s an L-Shaped room with old terracotta tiles in the floor. It gets pretty hot in the summer and there’s far too much gear in there, but it’s our home and I’d rather be there than a typical carpeted rehearsal room. It’s nice to know you can still get quality out of your own place – Soulsville’s been on the radio, that makes me proud! (Even if Basement Jaxx got there first!)

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track Part 10 of 12

10. Southern Melancholy

nb. Blog written coming back from Leicester, after a fun gig and with an angry belly from cheap pizza.

I think we all ended up really liking this one even though it nearly didn’t make it on the album. It was neck and neck with ‘Cryin’ In The Morning’ all the way, but won out in the back of the van coming back from a festival in Wales. Again it just felt more natural and kept up the intensity of the rest of the record.

There’s all sorts of stuff on this one. About 5 or 6 guitars including one through a spinning Leslie speaker, a mandolin. an electric flute thing, The Stockholm Strings again, piano, drums and bass of course and plenty of percussion but oddly not that much in the way of vocals.

Melodically it’s inspired by The Smiths ‘Stretch Out And Wait’ and an old Irish ballad called ‘Galway Shawl’ which is a really beautiful, aching song and something I used to hear a fair bit in the pubs of Glasgow.

It’s about the curse! Well that’s a bit strong, it’s another ‘Coming of Age’ style song and in a round about way about being a writer, and the weird conclusions you come to when people love a song of yours that is about a particularly painful subject for you, or to realise that what you’re best at is communicating feelings of sadness and isolation for other people to enjoy. It’s an odd concept and I’m very happy to be in this position but it’s weird feeling sometimes.

Of course the rest of the song is just about sadness and isolation! and being worn down by it. I wanted to make it a little like the old William Blake poems of an ancient fire and brimstone England. In fact the title I think sounds like an old hymn book and my favourite line is ‘Where angels collide, in danger I dwell’ and I haven’t got much more to say on the matter, apart from I wish it was a real flute instead of an electric one

Southern Melancholy by Ruffa Lane Records

Studio Rundown Part 2

4.The Dairy, Brixton

We did all of Ivors guitars here on a blazing hot weekend in May. We were slightly mis informed about which studio we were going to be in, and ended up having to have some fairly dramatically long wires coming down the corridor for from the amp to Ivor. Anyway we made some good progress on the first day before listening to it the following morning and completely scrapping pretty much everything bar Love3 and starting it all again. Luckily Ivor is extremely quick on the recording front and we powered through the second day, getting almost everything down. By far the most fun of the weekend was doing the Psychedelic closer the album with every effect pedal urned to stun, but I particularly liked being in Brixton as it only took me ten minutes to ride my bike home.

5. 2Bit Recordings, Deptford

This is my mate Andy Jones’ (of Lord Large and Big Babies fame) place where we recorded all of my guitars, Stephen Large’s manic organ and the three piece horn section for ‘Love3′, ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Like a Shame..’ and ‘Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’.

Andy is an amazing person and a fount of musical knowledge. tell him the record you like and he’ll be able to list all the equipment used on said record, where to get hold of the equipment and find some supreme musicians to help you play it. Honestly he knows everyone.

He has a fantastic little studio in Deptford too with loads of old gear (old valve pre-amps, space echoes, effects pedals etc.) and on his suggestion, we hired in a 1950’s Selmer Zodiac guitar amp which has crocodile effect skin a Knight Rider-esque glowing tube pulsating across the top of it. Apart from it’s looks it also sounds amazing and was the perfect vintage accompaniment to Misty, my old Gretsch Nashville.

Part 3 of studio list (yes there’s more!) continues in the nest installment

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track by Track Pt 9 of 12

9. That’s When Trouble Begins

I haven’t got much to say about this one really apart from it’s a breezy West Coast number that’s in keeping with the ‘Coming of Age’/ loss of innocence theme. When you’re young things seem simple but you hit a point (for me about 17) when you start to question everything and things go a little mad. This can be equally confusing and liberating and brings a whole host of exciting and troublesome experiences. Throw a bit of ambition into the mix and that’s when the halcyon days of childhood end and ‘trouble begins’.

Ivor spent an obscene amount of money a new pedal specifically for the solo on this one (and quite right too) and the organ that Art plays was bought for twenty quid from a rough estate in Oxted.

It’s a fun song and a brief bit of sunshine (all be it with the usual inherent LS miserablism) and got it’s place on the album as some light relief before the next onslaught.

So because I’ve not got a great deal of insight on this one, I thought I’d give a little rundown on the many studios where we recorded this album.

That’s When Trouble Begins by Ruffa Lane Records

A Coming Of Age Studios List Part 1

Brittania Row, Fulham, London

I think in a previous incarnation this was owned by Pink Floyd and has been a mainstream studio for a long time with many famous artists passing through it’s doors and some complete unknowns such as yours truly, for our first two singles. We recorded the basic rhythm tracks and most of the guitars for ‘Woah Billy!’ ‘White Russian Doll’ ‘Up in Flames’ ‘Upon Hilly Fields’ and ‘That’s Where Trouble Begins’ here. This was also the place where Rusty’s bass amp went up in flames. It was the first session and the last thing we did before breaking up for Christmas in 2008. We were ably assisted by our old friend ‘Dead Pan’ Kris Mclaren whose idea it was to do the gritty second drum kit overdub in the breakdown of ‘WRD’ and not mine as previously stated.

Mandarine Studios, Stockholm, London

Amazing, wonderful magical studio with microphones so unique that they are built with metal fashioned before 1940 so as not be contaminated by H-bomb radiation. Set by a river frozen enough for folks to race cars on it and one of the most tranquil places I’ve ever been. We recorded all the strings for the album over two sessions here in the safe hands of Johan ’Poolman’ Kronlund also known as El Diablo, one of the most considered gentleman you will ever meet and producer of Ruffa Lane artistes Montt Mardié and Napoleon. Some people say the silences between his words are painful but I get along with that just fine. While I was there, the owner of the studio popped in to tell us he’d just bought a castle which gives you an idea of the quality of the studio.

The Stockholm Strings are some of the most lovely people I have ever met and extremely talented to boot. Listening to the strings go down on ‘A Coming Of Age’ and ‘Warm Water’ in particular was an experience I will cherish forever and I got to push faders on the desk they mixed Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ on.

Lynch Mob Studios, Scrubs Lane, London

I think we were the first through the door here as producer Brendan Lynch (Paul Weller, Primal Scream) had just taken the over the place and installed his amazing ‘60s Neve mixing desk inside. We did the bass and drum tracks for every song here (re-recording the rhythm tracks that we’d done at Brittania Row as we’d got a better sound). It was a fairly frantic two days at Lynch Mob, but well worth it. It’s a cool place that has a 1970’s atmosphere about it and overlooks a cemetery. We got an insight into what makes a great producer when Brendan came in to listen to a run through of ‘Woah Billy!’ B-side ‘Why Can’t Everyone Be Nice For a Change’ which was proving really troublesome. He listened for a bit, said ‘Sounds really nice, maybe turn the hi-hat down a little’. We did one more take and nailed it there and then in his presence. Engineering on this one was Mancunian Dan Hulme who’s done some sterling work with The Coral and Candie Payne and is thoroughly good company even if he did make us go snare drum hunting for three hours.

The studio run down will continue in the next instalment, maybe not today, possibly tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life.

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track Pt 8 of 12

8. Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Shame (To Bring It All Back Home)

Party Time! Or not, whichever way you look at it. It’s a happy song with nasty words. The very simple premise is about when someone does you wrong, you can hide it away when you’re not in contact with that person, but as soon as you see them, all the pain, the fear and the anger comes flooding back. I won’t be being any more specific.

I think it started off as a bit of a Gram Parsons style country ballad but burst into life when Mr Atkins added the Paul Simon marching drum beat. Also if I remember rightly, Ivors twangy guitar line was a rough tryout for a bass line at first before realizing that it was brilliant just the way it was. My rhythm guitar part was put through an old Roland Space Echo at my friend Andy Jones’ (of Lord Large) studio for the authentic Ska/Dub whack.

We recorded the horns too in the same studio (on the same day as ‘Love3’ and ‘Could Be I Don’t Belong Anywhere’. I properly blagged that one and only turned up to the studio with a vague idea in my head. In the end I wrote the part on the spot which was pretty terrifying but it turned out to be the best horn part on the album (probably because it’s nice and simple).

Frankly it’s a weird song. It’s a bit ska, a little bit country, a bit Stax, a bit doo-wop, a bit Talking Heads, add some Scott Joplin, The Clash, sneak a bit of The Ronettes in there too. It’s the closest we’ve come to a ‘groove’ so for me it’s quite a step forward for us musically.

I did record a smashing glass sound effect for the ‘sound of breaking glass, breaking in my chest’ line. But after umm-ing and ahh-ing, fate decreed it wasn’t going when I manged to delete it, just before going to New York for the final mix sessions. I’m still finding shards in our studio though.

My defining memory of this track is when Art did a full gospel call and answer vocal track for this. That’s him at the end of the song ‘wa hoo hoo hoo’ ing. In the end it felt a bit gimmicky so we left all but the end bit out, but maybe we’ll do an alternate version one day with the full Terry treatment “Don’t be ALONE. Don’t Be ALONE girl. It’s ALL-RIIIGHT’. I was on the control room floor crying with laughter.

I imagine it would work really well on summers afternoon but seeing as sunshine has been hard to find lately (at least in the UK) but I hope it makes the listener feel happy…or really angry like I was when I wrote it!

Ain’t Nothing Like A Shame (To Bring It All Back Home) by Ruffa Lane Records

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track Part 7 of 12

7. Warm Water

This is a sad song with sad beginnings. I started writing it on my Grandmothers piano when I went to keep her company just after my auntie had lost her battle with cancer. I think I finished it at four in the morning at Soulsville SE5, slightly the worse for wear on a really miserable New Years Eve shivering and snivelling in gloves.

It’s not really about death, just general feelings of loss and abandonment.

I wanted to capture that feeling of when you’re feeling down and things get on top of you to an almost surreal level and you have a shower and it feels like you’re in there for ever, you just drift away. Either that or when you totally submerge yourself in the bath and you can only hear your own thoughts.

So feelings of distance, dislocation, disenchantment and all those other happy emotions. I wanted the guitars to sound like waves lapping, and the strings to sound like clouds gathering, but the whole thing to have a sunset quality.

This one owes a big debt to my hero, Burt Bacharch, and Q magazine said already that it’s “the best song Carole King never wrote”. Which I suppose is a polite way of a saying it’s a big Carole King rip-off, which is probably true! Tapestry is the Carole King album to get if you like things like this, very warm and beautiful, melancholic but still uplifting, like being in a log cabin on an evening at the end of the summer.

I don’t want you to think I sit around the mixing desk blubbing all the time, but the tears were rolling again when Ali sang it and my my chest was bursting when the strings went down but like I say, it’s a sad song.

There’s a great bit I found at end of the recording which has the rhythm section sounding like two old timers, “That was the one.” “Yep, that was the one for me” “Yep.” “Yep.”It feels like it’s been around for a long time though. We get criticised for not sounding modern enough, but the way I see it, I’d rather be unfashionable now and still be listened to for a long time, than this weeks darlings that no one wants to hear about come next week. We’re in it for the long run and the big prize.

I don’t know how often we’ll play it live, but we did it at the album launch and you could hear a pin drop.

Warm water, how can you turn to me and say “It’s over”?

Warm Water by Ruffa Lane Records

Blog : A Coming Of Age Track By Track pt 6 of 12

6. A Coming Of Age

I’ve been a bit lax in your track-by-tracks over the last couple of days. The tour took a bit of a manic turn in Manchester, one of those nights where you can sense something might kick off at any moment. I won’t go into detail but no soundcheck, an indifferent crowd, off-their-face lunatics (including second guitarist for a well known Manchester band) getting into the dressing room and harassing Ali (eventually being forcibly ejected by The Primitives burly drummer) all made for a unenjoyable night. It happens.

We high-tailed it over to Yorkshire as quick as we could, stopping only for some questioning by a bored copper, who we feared was going to ask for a full search of the van until I pulled out my best accent. “Is this your van?” “No, we’re hiring it.” “Do you have any documentation to prove that?” “Errrr….no” “Where are you going?” “We’ve just played a gig in Manchester and now we’re off to stay with me family” “Oh you’re in a band are you? Are you any good?” “Grand” I said.” “Have a safe journey then sir.”

York was much better, almost a hometown gig for me, although it got off to bad start when my guitar strap snapped on the first chord of ‘Woah Billy!’. I tried playing on one leg for a bit, then settled for kneeling on the floor, which I was just about getting away with, until Ali thought my mike stand had fallen down and unhelpfully put it back up, leaving me stranded. A quick change and all was cool though.

So… ‘A Coming of Age’

Usually in this band Ivor is the Riffmeister General but I’ve had the riff for this since the proto-Lucky Soul days in Glasgow although I could never find a suitable song to fit it in. It contains a discordant sounding flat 5 chord or ‘The Devil’s Interval’ as it better known. It was banned by the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages for basically sounding a bit evil amongst other more technical/nonsensical things.You’ll probably know it best from Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ and also the start of ‘The Simpsons’ theme tune. It’s a great chord to use if you want something to sound really dark. We tried it with me and Ivor playing the riff at the same time but it just kept sounding like Black Sabbath, so it’s just me and a couple of pedals.

Apart from the obvious James Bond/John Barry reference points, for me this is wall to wall Scott Walker, particular the Scott 4 album and a little bit of his ultra dark meat slapping side. Probably the song ‘The Seventh Seal’, which deals with a knight playing chess with death, was the biggest influence and also his classic ‘The Old Man’s Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalinist Regime)’ which has my favourite bass line of all time. If you haven’t heard much Scott Walker then you have many treats ahead of you, and although he maybe a bit dark for some, his fatalist humour does it for me. If you were a fan of The Last Shadow Puppets album, it’s fair to say you will like (and recognize) Scott 4.

As well as Scott, this song is haunted by the ghost of Serge Gainsbourg and his pièce de résistance ‘Histoire De Melody Nelson’. This is an album you must own, if only because it probably doesn’t sound like anything else you have. Rubbery funk bass lines, moody arrangements and dark choral backing mixed with cantankerous narration en Français, all combine to make something very cinematic but also intimate in such a way that the listener can feel voyeuristic at times. Anyway enough with the classics and back to us, which is why we’re here. I’m really proud of the strings on this one, the best arrangement I’ve done I think and the way they play off Stephen Large’s manic hammond organ. It’s all very intense.

The title refers to a loss of innocence or a rude awakening rather than the triumphant statement of the the album title when taken out of context. This theme of innocence lost runs right through the album. I’m an optimistic and excitable person with very high hopes and that can lead to a lot of anticlimaxes and I guess that most of the lyrics for this record were written in a period of change and inactivity after the full-on excitement of ‘The Great Unwanted’. Inactivity breeds self doubt, at least for me, I’m only truly happy when I’m being creative. I think were still battling through the lyrics to this right up to the deadline and we really struggled as to whether the line ‘And where fools rush in, well I run hell for leather -too late to make it better, too late’ fitted. Now when I listen back I can’t hear anything wrong, in fact it’s my favourite line. The amount of times that happens over a record is astounding. At the time you can get really wrapped up in minute detail but with a bit of perspective it’s all fine.

I hope you like the song, I honestly don’t think many bands would have the ambition to try and pull something like this off these days.

You can download it for free here: http://www.luckysoul.co.uk/freedownload

A Coming Of Age by Ruffa Lane Records

And here’s a stripped down acoustic version:

A Coming of Age Absolute Session