7.10.2007 Studio diary

A greater insanity!

Today on September 7th, 2007 at 13:00 it began. The studio sessions for Lovex's second album - or actually we were just departing for studio. We guys packed up all the instrument and amplifier equipment at the rehearsal place and then we headed again towards Helsinki and Inkfish studio. When packing, we were somewhat wondering how much more equipment we now have to take with us compared to our situation sometime more than two years ago when we left for the Inkfish studio to record songs for the first album. When it comes to me, at least, most of the money we have gained with our first album, has been spent directly on instruments and amplifiers and hopefully it can be heard on the next album in the form of improved sounds. I'm no longer contended with the sounds of Divine Insanity because of its clinically clean sounds even though it's otherwise a nice album.

The preparations for these studio sessions began already a year ago when we started writing new material - while still playing gigs. At first we didn't have enough time to write music and the work actually begun only during the summer when we sat down to decide when to go to studio and when to release the next album. Since that day this orchestra has been rehearsing and sitting in our home studios writing new music every day, except for those days when we've been on tour. The song-writing still continues because with this album we'll be in the studio for a month, then there will be gigs here and there and we'll try to record as many demos as possible before the second - and last - studio session, which will take place sometime in January-February 2008. At the moment we don't know yet the general style of the album because we've only made decisions on less than half of the songs and we have many different kinds of songs. At least I can say that our second album will be considerably different from the first one and stylistically it will present several different genres.

The writing of songs has been occasionally very difficult because there have been so many gigs and because of them we haven't have enough time to concentrate on the composing work. Only during the last couple of months the amount of gig has been cut down at our own request and it has clearly made the song-writing a lot easier. Touring is great, of course, but we've played altogether at least 170 gigs before and after the release of our debut album and it may be that there will be in total 200 of them before we can really start playing the songs from our second album. In my opinion that's far too many gigs after the release of just one album - even if we had had a tour around the world. I don't know if there is any other band in Finland with as many gigs under its belt with just one album released. Of course, we've tested some new material on gigs but we all agree that unless we now start recording a new album and refresh our setlist, we'll soon be pretty much pissed off.

9.10.2007
Back to basics: to the studio session itself. Now there's no more stress, this is absolutely fabulous. When writing music I've been under such amount of stress that I've sometimes felt self-destructive and I have had some other pretty sick ideas going on in my head. That's been quite hard for both myself and for others. The life hasn't been as smooth as it might have been and at times all the stress has made me feel so gloomy that now, when thinking back to those moments I wouldn't like to remember some of those minutes and I don't have the guts to share those moments with anyone. On the other hand, it may be that all the pain and suffering may inspire some great music but at times the price has seemed far too high. After all those dark moments it feels great and relaxing to finally be able to start recording those songs, which remind me of those obscure moments. When playing those songs I can say that I survived those bad times and now I can again enjoy the life to the fullest and I'm also stronger and a bit wiser than before.

This time it feels that the studio sessions will be more relaxed than the previous ones. Back then I sometimes felt like crying because all the anxiety involved. This time the phase of agony took place fortunately before entering the studio and now it seems that this process will lead us towards something splendid and the anxiety has been left far behind. The songs represent new and different Lovex but they still sound like us. I'm feeling great and I'm here at the studio waiting for my turn. Meanwhile Julian is banging his new, good-looking Julian Drain Custom drums, made by Kumu. The drumming sounds great and he plays well. The producer for this record is Erno Laitinen, who was the assistant producer of Divine Insanity. Now he's alone responsible for the production of this album and it seems that he nicely agrees with the band about the music. Because of that the songs are easier to record, because the band's own production-related ideas pass his filter quite easily. And yes, those 170 gigs and all those numerous hours spent in our rehearsal place have maybe made us better song-writers.

11.10.2007
Everything seems good, still. Today we should finish with the drums and then we'll start polishing the guitar and bass arrangements. We're feeling really calm compared to the times of Divine Insanity. There's no more messing around and the songs seem to be in better shape. I must admit that making music is great at those times when everything is running this smoothly. To be continued... Vivian Sin'amor