Song a Month!

Last year I did one of those 365 - Photo a Day things, and while it was interesting for me to go back through and see what I was doing each day, the whole process didn't really excite me. Photography is fun, but it's not one of my main passions. In fact looking at the photos it's very obvious what my main passion is: probably 60% or more feature a band, band practice, or some kind of musical equipment. So rather than focus on that again, this year I've decided to take on a project that's much more personal to me.

I've been playing guitar, playing in bands and writing songs since I was 15. My first band Altered lasted about 1 and a half years. After we broke up it took a while before I joined another band properly, but I kept writing songs in the meantime. It was around this time that I first got the idea to record a solo album. This is when I came up with the name wysht for a band (it's a variation of an old English word for silence). This band never materialised because I couldn't find people who had the same visions for the songs as I did. So I started recording them at home by myself to make sure I at least had a record of them, and because I felt they went together and told a story well. (I also started using the name wysht for my online presence.)

Then I joined a hardcore band called Sinatra's Eyes and all that fell by the wayside. The music we were doing was very different and none of those songs fit into it. I continued recording the album in bits and pieces, but it wasn't my priority anymore. When Sinatra's Eyes broke up about two years later, I eventually finished the album and released early morning silence in 2006. It was incredibly rough, the production was horrible, and I learnt I'm nowhere near as good a singer as I wish to be. But I'm still proud that I had this concept and followed it through from beginning to end.

Since then I have been involved in a string of bands pretty much constantly: We Came to be Robots!, Kaviya and the Committal, which has now transformed into Death by Death Ray. These bands have taken the focus of my creative outlet and I'm proud of the stuff I did with all of them, especially what I'm doing now with Death by Death Ray. I still write music of a lot of styles, some of which doesn't fit into these homes and therefore often gets left by the wayside.

One thing I've noticed is that I've gotten very bad at finishing songs. This is not a problem with Death Ray because we tend to write collaboratively and feed off each others ideas. But for songs that don't fit into that style it means I have a whole heap of unfinished ideas sitting around that I can see the potential in, but never go anywhere. I've also stopped trying to sing so much, since Death Ray has an amazing singer and I just do backup screams. This means I've stopped writing lyrics too though, which is something I've always enjoyed. Recently I've been really taken with artists who tell stories through their songs, rather than personal tales and this is something I really want to try too.

So for this year I've decided to challenge myself to write, finish and record at least one song for every month. The aim being to improve my songwriting, singing and home recording skills. I intend to explore a number of different musical styles where possible. Some songs will incorporate the ideas I've had for years and finally finish them off. Hopefully some will be completely new. Some will be solo songs, some I will attempt to make sound like a full band. Some will hopefully be collaborations with others. Some might be demos/alternate versions of Death Ray songs. I won't be including any covers (unless they are significantly different from the originals), but I may put some covers up as references for the songs I do write, and to practice production/recording skills.

Hopefully I'll improve my skills and have something I'm proud of by the end of it. And hopefully some of you will enjoy listening to it! To this end I've set up a Soundcloud account to share the songs with anyone who wants to listen. http://soundcloud.com/wysht The first song is up there now, with a brief description. It's called Artists Are (Shitty) People Too and was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend. I'll write another blog post soon specifically about this song to give some more details for anyone who's interested as there's a lot of references to outside things in the song, including this project itself and other songs I've written that most people have never heard. But as Amanda Palmer said "don't tell me not to reference my songs within my songs."

But I'll write that next week as I'm heading out for the night soon. In the meantime, I've started working on February's song. It's a killer riff and as long as I can get the lyrics right for it, I'm really excited about how it will come out. Also, if you're free on Saturday night, come see Death by Death Ray at the Prague, it's gonna be an awesome night! Death By Deathray, Babymachine (NSW), Thrasher Jynx, Boy Red @ The Prague.

wysht.