I am back in the recording studio after many years, recording a track called The Hamster man from Amsterdam.This is actually the theme song to the hit reality TV show of the same name. The reality show follows the life of an alcoholic called Colin who runs a pet store specialising in cut-price rodents.Recording a song that could be destined to be a No 1 is quite an involved process, and one of the first stages is to write it. Due to time constraints I was unable to write any more than the first verse until I was actually in the studio preparing to record it.Any top songwriter or musician worth their weight will tell you that, as most recording studios charge out an hourly rate, this isn't the ideal way to go about it. The verse I have written goes a little something like this:Halfway down Dominion Rd there's a man you have to meetHe's the king of the Urban Jungle; he wears shoes upon his feet.He's the hamster man from Amsterdam.(Chorus): Gerbils and hamsters, that's his gameYou want a small rodentJust call out his name
I find that, much like writing a column, the deadline pressure and time constraints can actually sharpen your senses and give you a better sense of rhythm and rhyme.Put it this way - the only reason the song is called The Hamster man from Amsterdam is because, under pressure, Amsterdam is that the only word I could think of that rhymed with Hamster man. Had I not had that kind of pressure I doubt whether I would have been able to come up with that quality of rhyme.Once I wrote the rest, the next job was to teach it to the rest of the band, in this case Greg Hart, my brother, and Matt Johnson, who I spent time with in a French prison.These are the same guys with whom I tried to carve out a musical career back in the 90s.We hope to have a little more success with this recording than we did with our first recording back in 1991.That four-song demo was sent to thousands of record companies in Britain, only to be rejected by all of them.In fact, it got to the stage that we were fairly confident that most A&R people weren't even listening to the product.To test the theory we swapped 25 CDs with burger patties, put them back in the cases and sent them to a selection of record companies.Our rationale was that if the record executives did open the cases they would be amazed and impressed by our humour and initiative and subsequently ask for a copy of the actual CD.If, on the other hand, they simply tossed the demo into their bins, it would only be a matter of time before their offices began to stink and once again they would be forced to open the CD case. Again they would be suitably impressed by our innovative and irreverent approach to the competitive record industry and probably give us a record contract without even listening to the CD.Not surprisingly we received the same stock-standard response from these companies: We enjoyed your sound but unfortunately we can't quite place it right now, etc, etc.Depending on how this recording goes, we should have a product ready for download at about 4.30 this afternoon. I'd better get back to it.
