NOTE:  This is an article I originally wrote on the BHP blog barely less than a year ago

Jim and I have technically done more writing together than either of us have with Casey.  When Casey left Force That Binds, Jim and I continued on with another singer (and eventually yet another), and the two of us still wrote the songs musically-speaking.  When FTB finally folded, we went on to another band together (called Solidify) where we also wrote the music together.  In the post Solidify days, the two of us have spent time writing for our “Audio Challenge” projects, and we spent time re-working and in some ways re-writing a lot of our old FTB songs together.

But as I’ve said in the past, the two of us have always agreed that our best writing that we’ve ever done is when we’ve written with Casey.  We work better as a trio than we do as a duo.

One of the biggest reasons for that, in my opinion, is that Casey has always pushed us to come up with more parts, more change-ups, more dynamics.

A good number of our songs from the early FTB days had characteristics that set them apart from all of the other songs, besides just the obvious… chord progression, tempo, and melody.  Some songs would have tempo changes.  Some songs would break away from the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus patterns.  Some songs had lyrical bridges.  Some songs had musical break downs or interludes.  Some songs had intros that were completely separate from the other musical parts.  Some songs had outtros that were separate parts.  Some songs had keyboard parts through the whole song.  Some songs had keyboard parts in only small sections.  Some didn’t have keys at all.

Toward the end of Casey’s time in FTB, Jim and I discovered the amazing world of digital recording, and we started writing song ideas individually instead of collectively, mainly because of the ease of plugging into a device and hitting “record” during our own free time.  As we started to do that, our songs became much more simplistic in structure and arrangement.  I won’t speak for Jim, but in my case it was probably because I was so excited to write “songs” that I just wanted to get one done and move onto the next.  Unfortunately that was forming a bad habit for me (and if I can be so bold, probably Jim, too).  When Casey left the band, we continued writing in this way, and pretty much all of the post-Casey FTB or Solidify songs (with a small handful of exceptions) where much more basic verse-chorus-verse-chorus style songs.

When BHP started getting together again, I’d present song ideas, and typically they’d have two different sections, and Casey’s first comment was typically “I have some ideas for some more parts”.

I never told him this, but I usually thought something along the lines of  “Can’t we just put vocals to this and call it done?!?”  But, over time it started becoming really obvious that our songs were becoming much more solid, and much more interesting.

Don’t get me wrong… sometimes simple songs with 2 parts can still come out great.  For example,  one of our songs on the RPM challenge disc (Fallen They Be) was called “My Offering”, and it’s a simple 2-part song that Jim and Casey wrote, and it’s probably one of the best songs on the entire album.

But for the most part I find myself drawn to having much more complex pieces.  Having songs with intros, pre-choruses, interludes, a guitar solo over a unique progression, key changes, tempo changes, etc, etc, etc.

On a related side-note, I’ve been on a Metallica kick lately.  I’ve always liked Metallica, but for some reason over the past couple weeks, or maybe even months (time gets away from me so fast these days) I’ve been hooked on them more than usual.  “Death Magnetic” is such a great album, and I’m really really intrigued by all of the different parts that each song has, and how the band managed to blend them so seamlessly.  I’ve been reading interviews and watching some behind-the-scenes type things, and Metallica’s favored way to write is that they jam on a bunch of different riffs (both separately and collectively as a band), then they take those riffs and chop them up and figure out how they all tie together.  It’s an interesting way to put together a song.

Jim and I did something similar on a song called Starlight that will be on our next CD (NOTE, that album was finished in June of 2009, and it’s called The Door).  Jim had a great guitar riff from years ago that we have never really used.  He figured out how to play it again, and then he and I turned on a drum loop and started jamming on parts in that same key.  The next day I pieced together the different parts we created into a song, and it ended up being a very dynamic very interesting piece.

I’ve been doing that in my own writing time lately… instead of just trying to write a verse and a chorus and calling a song idea done, I start up a drum machine, pick my key, and start coming up with riffs.  I try to lay down 5 or 6 different parts at least, then later I’ll come back and see how I think they might fit together.  Some parts end up being thrown out, and some end up sparking ideas for new parts, but it’s a creative way to put songs together, and it’s leading me in directions that I would’ve never gone if I had maintained my old habit of sitting down and trying to create an entire song from start to finish.

When Jim and I started writing songs nearly 10 years ago together, we approached everything from a “live band” point of view.   There’s nothing wrong with that… after all, we were writing songs for a live band.  We were writing with the intention to play them in front of people first, and worry about how to make recordings sound good second.  Every time one of us wrote a guitar riff, we’d instantly start thinking about what the other one was going to play on top of it.  It was our goal to write parts that sounded full with two guitar parts, and occasionally a keyboard part.

The two of us wrote a lot of music for FTB when Casey was writing with us.  When Casey left, and we were writing for Al Flemming, and later Greg Brink, we were writing ALL of the music.  When we tried starting post-FTB bands on a couple of occasions (a band called Solidify being the one we got closest to getting up and running), we were again writing all of the music.  Besides the numerous songs we finished with each singer, we had piles and piles of unused music.  We did A LOT of writing together.

Here we are, over 6 years since I’ve been in any form of the band FTB, and I still have a tendency to want to write like I’m writing for a performing band.  It’s a hard habit to break.  I’ve forced myself to break it often, but it still feels so natural that I have to make a conscious effort to not trap myself inside the “band” box.  It’s become easier over the years when I’m writing for my own personal music projects to not think like that (obviously, because I’m playing ALL of the parts in those projects), but as soon as I get together with Jim and Casey, those old habits want to come back.

What’s the difference?  Well, in my mind, the difference between writing for a live band, and writing just to write is unbelievably huge.  When writing for a band, we have to keep from writing too many parts (because there has to be someone available to actually play the parts), but we also have to worry about not writing enough parts (performers don’t want to stand for too long at a time without doing anything).  When writing only for the sake of the song, we’re much more free to do what’s right for the overall sound.  If one part of the song needs 4 guitar parts and 3 keyboard parts, that’s what we put in.  If another part needs keys and no guitars, that’s what we do.

I think doing the RPM challenge last month helped push me further in the right direction.  We worked on songs so quickly that there wasn’t time to worry about who had enough parts every song and who didn’t.  There were songs on the RPM album that I didn’t even play guitar on.  There were songs that Jim didn’t play on.  There were two songs that Casey didn’t record anything on.  Yet all three of us walked away from the project very happy with every song that the group finished.

Now, a month later, as we are working on a huge collection of songs for a CD (or perhaps even a CD set?!?) that will be finished in the last week of June, I finally find myself more relaxed about “parts”.  It seems crazy, but this might be the first time musically I’ve worked with other people and not really been concerned with making sure we have the right number of parts, and making sure the right people play each part.

It’s a liberating feeling.

-Jason

Call it self-centeredness,  call it  control issues, or just call it egotistical behaviour,  but in the past I’ve always been wary about collaborating with people from outside “the group”.  While it took me sometime  to really grasp the fundamentals and benefits  of collaborating outside of my comfort zone, I’m really glad I did.

Largely, I think  my problem was a boundry or trust issue that stemmed from my own insecurities as a writer/musician.  I just didn’t like venturing into the unknown territory and the uncertainty of dealing with a new voice.   With Casey and Jason I’ve always known I could be open and honest about an arrangement.  I could tell them,  and likewis,e expect them to tell me, when something  just didn’t work.  In the end, we’d all know it was just honest critism with no judgement intended.   I also knew expect the same level of passion and dedication out of them when it came to writing and work together.  I didn’t have to worry about anyone dominating the process.  We were a solid unit.

But add in a third party?

What could I expect from them?  Would I get the truth from them?  Would they share the same vision?  Would they bring the same level of passion?  Would they listen and take from my direction?

Admittedly, that last one was my biggest fear.  Why?  Well, between Casey, Jason and I  we know and have worked with some great musicians, and for me, nothing was more off-putting or terrifying than having a truely skilled guitarist in for a session and playing one of  our songs– one that we wrote, and that  I struggled over–effortlessly and making it sound better than when I played it.  Now, admittedly, this has only happened to me once, and when it did the guy only showed up for a week, stole our drummer and started a new band, but, hey, it was another log on my insecurity fire, and nothing gets that fire roaring higher than the realization, erroneous as it may be, that you can easily be replaced.

Fast forward a few years…

With time comes experience and patience.  As Jason can attest, it took me a few years to start really trusting myself as a musician and define my style.  I am a late bloomer when it comes to music, I didn’t pick up my first instrument until I was 20,  and  I’ve had to hit the ground running and learn things as I go.  Luckily, Jason is the type of guy who gladly offers uncolored feedback , relying instead on the straight-up approach, and  helped me re-enforce the fact that while, yes, there will always be someone who is technically more skill than I am, when it came to music,  my music, that it really didn’t matter.   It took me awhile to see the forest through the trees, but I eventually realized  he was right.   Sure, someone maybe able to pick-up and play my song better than I do, but the fact is, it’s my song they are playing.   They didn’t write  it.  They didn’t slave over it. They didn’t compose or arrange it.   That was me.   I had created something new.  It really was, and still is,  a reassuring mantra.

As with most things, though, learning this brought new questions and  forced me to re-examine several  aspects of my songwriting.  Which leads us back to collaborating.

I now understand that collaboration is nothing more than a new tool in the songwriting shed. It’s not a replacement of a tool.  It’s just a different tool.   For instance, let’s face it , I’m never going to be a singer, and while Jason can do the occasion backing vocal, I don’t think he’ll ever refer to himself as a vocalist,  but there are many times when we are working on a song where we NEED another vocalist.  Where we need someone to come in and duet with Casey, or, as we’ve done recently, sing Casey’s lyrics and melody in place of Casey in order to achieve what Casey envisioned.  Now, while this may be collaboration in the loosest sense, it still shows the value of collaboration.

Where collaboration really shines, is where we are at now as a group.  Now that we aren’t playing live anymore and worrying about how we’d perform a song live,  we are exploring all sorts of avenues, and collaboration helps us in this exploration.  We can also now, take a song exactly where we pictured it going.  So, not only can we have a studio musician come and fill in some parts with us, we can have folks from around the world actually WRITE with us.

This, of course leads us to the ultimate truth about collaboration:

Collaboration can be liberation.  So on that front, what are some of  your hits-and-misses on collaboration?  How has collaboration improved your creativity?

-Jim