In the studio

We all live in different places, indeed different countries, so I devised a way to collaborate that works for all of us that developed from working with JJ for his solo albums. I’d set up a bass drum click track and a chord pad that just played the root note of the key of the song and we’d record his vocal to that. That gave him a lot of freedom to express the vocal. Then we could remove the click and the chord pad and re- imagine the song by trying different chords and rhythms underneath the vocal.

John is very good at this as it’s not always easy to sing a whole song over just one note. We used this same method in January 2025 to try out ideas for our new trio project and then sent the results to Ray in Sweden to work on his parts, try different instruments and various vocal ideas. It’s always exciting to receive these back and see how the song has developed.

We then came back together in the studio in April and quickly settled into a working rhythm. Ideas flowed and it was great to hear the three of us singing together again and trying out songs with different instruments and arrangements.