Blog 4: Recording drums and bass at Britannia Row:

So Pearl Jam blew me away. The 02 was completely full and buzzing. The fans were really dedicated, waving their arms in time with the songs and really interacting with the band. The atmosphere was tops. They started their first set and most of their songs gave me goose bumps. Ed started with the song 'Release' and I had a mystic experience. His voice sounds like one of those African air instruments that make your whole body vibrate. The slightly disconcerting thing was that the concert was also slightly skitso. Their magical reverberating music (and my mystic-like state) sometimes got interrupted by what seemed to me like a crazy rockabilly band crashing the show. Almost like the "real" band was replaced by a double every once and a while. It felt like an ad break during your favourite tv soap, the door bell ringing while you are making love, You know...that sort of feeling. What a pity as it seems like the band is heading off towards this new genre which just does no justice to Ed's voice. They must have become bored...hope they come back to their senses (and into that amazing creative vein that created songs like 'Even Flow' and 'Jeremy')!

So here's part 4 of 'making of my album': Recording drums and bass at Britannia Row:

We were due to start recording drums on June 30 2008. Cristano Micalizzi was supposed to arrive the evening of the 29th from Rome , grab a drum set from his pal here in London and set up at Britannia Row so we are ready to rock straight away the next morning. About 1 week before this date I get a call from the Brit Row manager, Jamie, and we risked losing our slot to a well known band who's record label had decided LAST SECOND that they wanted to record at Brit Row THAT SPECIFIC WEEK! I was going to have a panic attack as Cristiano was booked up for the whole summer and the only time he could play on my album was that week! So I begged and pleaded and all but cried (Ok, maybe I even did that) and...we got to keep our slot. Drama. Phffeeeww!

Cristiano arrived on time on the right day and you could immediately tell that he is that mega humble, sweet, enthusiastic and colloborative sort of guy. Fortunately these qualities were (somehow surprisingly) also coupled with incredible talent. Cristiano immediately blew us away with his drumming. He wouldn't miss a beat (literally!). We'd tell him what we were looking for and he did it, making it even better with his own ideas and colours he would add. I was already hearing my songs very differently with these AMAZING live drums and the human touch of a talented musician replacing the 'perfect but souless' programmed drums we had been using to finalise the music arrangements. Then Emanuele arrived to play bass guitar on some of the songs (we wanted Cristiano and Emanuele to play together so they could feed off each other'ss ideas, vibes, groove etc..). I spent those days in the studio just BUZZING with energy and feeling unstoppable. I just wanted to run around kissing and hugging everyone (I did exercise some self control). I would arrive every day with a huge thermos of home made espresso coffee from my moka machine, a box of Green and Black chocoloates and that would keep our energy up for the day (yes, sorry if that is disappointing to the rock and roll crowd but caffeine and chocolate were all the 'drugs' we did I'm afraid!)

We had booked the studio for 5 days to record the 12 songs we had decided to put on the album, but by day 2 we realised we were going to be done in 3 days instead! So we had time to record another couple of songs (that's how " Why Did I" ended up on the album) and we managed to get credit for one day. Anyway, stage one of the recording process was done. Kerplunk.

More coming soon!

Odette Xx