Distance Of Hope

Like many people, when Covid happened I was stuck at home with very little to do. Fortunately, I have a studio at home so I thought I may as well write a song using a new bass guitar that I had borrowed for the weekend.

I’d never played the bass and had always been a little scared of it, so when I got the chance to borrow one for the weekend, I did so with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. Due to Covid restrictions, I ended up returning the bass 18 months later!

I started messing around with it and then added bits of keyboard and drums, and lo and behold, I soon had the beginnings of what i thought could be a good song. This ended up being ‘Lisbon’, the first single in the ’12 Songs’ project.

For as long as I can remember, I have written songs primarily with an acoustic guitar and maybe some keyboards from to time, so the challenge this time of starting with a bass was interesting and quite difficult at first. But that’s what makes life, and writing songs, interesting. Writing songs with instruments that you’re not used to, or don’t even know how to play, makes things hard, but creatively worthwhile and most of all, enjoyable.

Before I knew it, I had written 30 songs in the space of ten weeks between March and May. And I don’t just mean loose acoustic versions that still needed to be fleshed out. These were finished songs that just needed mastering, as skill which I have no interest in learning or doing. Sometimes, you leave things to the professionals.

So, then I started thinking about what I would do with these songs. Releasing a regular album didn’t seem to fit within the strange times of Covid restrictions. So to do something different, I decided on the ’12 Songs’ project where I would release a news single and video at 12pm on 12th of each month for 12 months.

I’d only made one video before for ‘Leaving Berlin’ on the previous album ‘The Ghosts Of Granada’, so this would be challenge too.

I’m really proud of the songs and videos that I made for the ’12 Songs’ project and repackaging them as an album has been a nice trip down memory lane. It even reminded me of some TV and radio interviews that I did in Spanish which I’ll post here another time.

After a quiet couple of years musically, I’m now also really looking forward to releasing new songs in the shape of a 4-track EP and an album later this year. And who knows, playing some gigs could be fun!

Click on Music to listen to the albums on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music.