Today we’re giving a presentation to some engineering students about our creative process. When we write songs, often times we’ll improvise over a vamp or musical idea until a solid theme that we like crystalizes. Here’s an example of that:
This clip is one of our first rehearsal recordings of the song Interfaith Dialogue. Eric introduced a gospel-style vamp and we all started to create around it. You might notice towards the end I start veering off topic, freestying about a guy wearing Adidas. That was in response to some guy who had just walked into our rehearsal space wearing a track suit. Improvisation draws from your surroundings.
This clip is the final product, Interfaith Dialogue, which appeared on our album Silence Fiction. Notice the elements that we incorporated and discarded from the improvisational songwriting session. Some of the lyrics and much of the music came directly from analyzing and plucking the gems from the improvisational jam. This is why we record our rehearsals.
[…] A few weeks ago I posted some examples of our songwriting process, including experimental and final versions of our song Interfaith Dialogue. I was Morphius inviting Neo (you) to take the blue pill: and go deeper into the rabbit hole of Beast musicology. Today I’m welcoming you into our training facility. We usually write songs every Wednesday in Steak’s basement (see that basement in our Sound Situations interview), but occasionally we’ll retreat to a remote location where we can drink spirits and write music uninterrupted for a whole weekend. Our next song writing retreat will take place in March, and we’re pumped about writing some new bangers! Here’s a glimpse of what we have in store: […]