It was July 28, 2017, on a flight, when the mood struck to open my laptop and start writing down words and sounds that were spinning in my head. My mood was not positive. One of my favorite musicians of the past 20 years had tragically passed away just a week earlier.

It was July 28, 2017, on a flight, when the mood struck to open my laptop and start writing down words and sounds that were spinning in my head. My mood was not positive. One of my favorite musicians of the past 20 years had tragically passed away just a week earlier. 

So with the downtime of traveling and reading life stories of the musician who has just passed, got me thinking of my own life story, and looking to some darkness in my own past. 

Verse one and chorus of Pain of Reality was born. 

Over the next couple months, the melody of the music and the tempo came to life. I decided to take the first verse and turn it into an intro / outro, with a different feel from the body of the song. This allowed me to create an ominous percussion tone, by using orchestra mallets on 14" and 16" floor toms. I realized that the body of the song would feel very different, and I liked how this bookends an open and close for a complete piece of music. 

I recorded some early takes of the entire song, including the intro/outro and body, with just drums and vocals melodies, and shared with some people close to me. One of my closest musician partners and friends, Rob McKeown of Suspicious Hooligans, highlighted that I was singing in a major key, but the melancholy lyrics would reflect better in a minor key. Rob took my vocal melody and rough guitar melody, and recreated both in a minor key. 

Now in a key that hopes to evoke the appropriate emotion, I started various takes of recording guitars, drums, and vocals. Then layered in bass guitar (but actually played the bass on a keyboard). I added in harmonies into the vocals, and created several guitar layers. In a way to round out the sound, I added in synth to add in an electronic touch to this primarily acoustic song. 

The above was a labor of love for over a year. I worked on it as time allowed. As various recording sessions were completed, I'd share drafts on the band SoundCloud site for anyone to listen to the work in progress. 

By July 2018, all recording was complete. If you hadn't known, all parts were played by me, and I was also the recording engineer and producer. Truly a one-man show in the studio. I had wanted to bring Rob into the studio with me, but we were both busy and couldn't make the time work. 

It was then that I partnered with Scott at SuRGe Studios (and of the band Power Surge) to work together on mixing and mastering. All of the recorded tracks were sent to SuRGe Studios. We worked together over five months on 5 separate two-to-three hour mixing and mastering sessions, to get things just right for a proper mix that should work for a final release. 

The final master was completed just before New Years, and then scheduled for release on January 11, 2019 via our partnered distribution network, Distrokid, to all the online music stores and streaming services. Now it's available for you to listen, and I hope you enjoy. 

-SV