Maybe I should just stay silent?

November 28th, 2008

Hey,

in search of the most lame headline I’m taking a firm lead with this one. It’s been well over a year from the recordings of Stay Silent Forever, and I still haven’t written anything about the songs. I’ll try to remember something about the opening track now.

There have been a few questions about why the beginning of the song Stay Silent is like it is. Many have said that it sounds like a starter for a full-length album, but it doesn’t work as a single that well. The intro is there simply because I originally wrote the song to be the opening song for the gigs. So, that’s why. I actually did make an intro tape for the song, it had a two-minute instrumental thing before Stay Silent, but I guess it wasn’t that good since we haven’t used it. I have to dig up the instrumental from somewhere, maybe it isn’t as bad as I remember.

I just listened to the original demo of the song. Again, the version on Stay Silent Forever is basically the same as the demo, only a few little adjusts. Maybe the most notable add is the lead guitar in the choruses, and the spoken backgrounds in the second verse. The second verse has been spiced up guitar-wise too. Quite a few things going on there. But not as much as in the c-part. I guess there were something like 8 “maustekitara” tracks (I have no idea what is the corresponding word in English), it’s a pure pleasure for the ear. Too bad that Jouni put much effort into hiding them =) But I guess I should not go into details about the recordings, cause they can be found from the making of -diaries.

Stay Silent differs a bit from our other songs, or at least it did at the time when I wrote it. The rhythm guitar in the verse is fairly simple and originally there was nothing else than the one rhythm guitar and the bass line. At that time (I guess something around November 2006) I mostly built the rhythm tracks based on simple harmonies and chords with just a basic eighth notes or similar, but this time I played with the rhythm a little bit. I mean, nothing fancy, but at that time it was something I hadn’t done before. I guess the rhythm guitars in the verse have a bit of a poor man’s Disco Ensemble -feel to them.

After I had finished the song, I kind of knew what the rest of the guys would say. I was pretty sure that Johannes was going to absolutely love the song, Jouni wouldn’t be that fond of it and Ari would be somewhere in the middle. And that’s pretty much exactly how it went down. The crystal ball hardly ever fails.

The sounds in the original demo are refreshing (at least to my ear, some might say that I have somewhat distorted sound likings). The guitars are way more crunchy and maybe have a bit more edge to them. But that could also be simply because I’ve listened to the song so many times during the recording and mixing processes and my ears just want something different. The demo had the bass line played with a guitar and then lowered by one octave, which resulted in an, how would I put it, interesting bass guitar sound =) I can’t remember if the demo was made with PodXT or with GuitarSuite, but I’m leaning towards the first one.

The overall feel and style of Stay Silent was going to be our “guideline” for our musical style. But I guess it didn’t. As you can see from the playlists my musical taste is quite vast, which results that on Monday I might want to play heavy songs, but by Wednesday I want to play whimpy indie music. And this makes it really hard to make songs that I would like for over a week. Luckily every now and then I manage to make a song that even I like. Stay Silent certainly has it’s moments. At times I even like it.

-Kari