05.10.2007 - TALES DON'T TELL THEMSELVES TRACKLISTING BAND NOTES! |
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Tales Don't Tell Themselves 1. Into Oblivion (Reunion) 2. The Great Wide Open 3. The Diary 4. On A Wire All Hands On Deck 5. Part 1: Raise The Sail 6. Part 2: Open Water 7. Out Of Reach 8. One For The Road 9. Walk Away 10. The Sweetest Wave Here's what Matt & Ryan have to say about each track.. INTO OBLIVION (REUNION) Matt: This song was one of the last ones written for the record, it came about after we were messing with a very long piece of music. We were listening to a lot of Rush, Genesis and Dream Theatre and I wanted us to write a piece of music that went with this story that I had written, I had hopes for a huge 20 minute epic but sadly we couldn't figure out how to make it work so we salvaged some of the sections and developed those into full songs, this one turned out so well, I still get goose bumps when the chorus kicks in, it's one my favourite vocal melodies. Lyrically the song is how the main character makes it home after going through all the hardships of the story. Ryan: Originally, this song came about as an intended intro section to 'The Sweetest Wave' but after playing around with it with it for a while we found ourselves with something that we've probably never had- a song absolutely made to open an album. The way the intro of the song progressed from a keyboard section, to the orchestral choir-led piece that it is now, really blows my mind. This song and 'The Sweetest Wave' really got us excited about the whole concept idea which is why those songs start and end the record. The rest of the record is pretty much written around these two songs. THE GREAT WIDE OPEN Matt: This was an idea that somehow started with a Kris guitar part and then exploded into something different when we all got our greasy little hands on it. I can remember going through so many different chorus ideas and then settling on this great 'Rush of the flood' section. The lyrics were pretty much complete at the time of writing although when I heard the first guitar parts I knew what this song was going to be about lyrically and what place it had within the concept. This is the part of the story where the central character, delirious and so alone dreams of reliving his life from his birth to the exact moment where he starts to become delirious but his current self guides his younger self through his own life in the body of a blackbird, strange I know but that's what growing up watching and loving David Lynch movies will do to you! Ryan: I just love the groove on this song. It definitely reminds of me of old school 'Van Halen'. We were always in love with the verse and pre-chorus section but could never quite find that magic chorus until we totally turned the song around and went for the old school punky singalong vibe that just fitted so well. Another first on this song is the section with just drums and vocals (from all of us!) which is something we'd never done before. THE DIARY Matt: This was pretty straight forward if I remember. I had the title The Diary written out on my huge pile of notes with a scribbled idea of how I wanted the story of this song to be about the daughters' feelings of loss and how she would never give up on her father. It was an important song for me as I've never really tried writing from a third person perspective before but it was a lot of fun and having Lianne come in to do some vocals with me was the icing on the cake. Ryan: I remember absolutely loving the main riff when Kris first played it because it reminded me of 'Status Quo' in the way it moved. Getting Lianne from the 'The Secret Show' in to sing this with us was great because her voice works so well with Matt's. Darran's guitar harmonies at the end are amazing too, I think he'll probably dedicate them to Brad Delp (recently departed 'Boston' vocalist) RIP. ON A WIRE Matt: This song came from nowhere, we had a version of it called Bird On A Wire but it never connected with, I liked some of the lyrics I had written for the song but it never described what I wanted so when the music developed again when working with Gil it made more sense to me, the structure changed and the pace picked up which opened up a new door for melodies and pacing. This middle eight is one of my favourite things on the whole record, I love how it came together from practically nowhere. Lyrically it's about coming to terms with the situation that surrounds you and learning to move on from that point. Ryan: The version of 'Bird on a Wire' that we demoed ourselves was just basically a clean guitar and a sampled drum loop underneath. We never really considered taking it any further until Gil (Norton, producer) heard something in it that we maybe didn't hear. I just love the dynamics in the song. ALL HANDS ON DECK PART 1: RAISE THE SAIL Matt: I love how immediate this song is, very emotionally driven. I had various vocal ideas for this that I wasn't very happy with but I took the song home with me one night and visualized this huge storm tearing at the ocean and heading for this lone ship. I wanted to get the idea of impending doom and mortal fear from the crew's perspective to get the feeling of despair. I turned up the next day at rehearsals and had Kris play the music on my acoustic while I sang the new melodies we both knew this was really good and would be a key song for the record. I love the outro riff on this, it's so dramatic and intense. Ryan: This was one of the songs we actually wrote early on, before the concept idea had been talked about. Originally it had completely different lyrics so Matt adapted it to lyrically fit with the theme of the record. The outro is still one of my favorite moments of the record. Could definitely hear this song in a 'James Bond' movie. PART 2: OPEN WATER Matt: I knew after we wrote The Great Wide Open that I wanted to have a song in two parts that continued the narrative quite closely. After writing the lyrics for Raise The Sail I knew that Open Water would have to follow on after it. This is what happens after the storm has hit the ship and the aftermath, the pain and the isolation and the sheer unbelief as to what's just happened. I love how both songs are so closely linked, I'm really proud that we managed to pull it off. Ryan: I think this is probably the grooviest song we've ever done. It has a really 'exotic' and 'eastern' feel to it. When we recorded the drums I really wanted that big 'Zeppelin' sound. I think this song is the best example of that. Plus, we've got cowbell in there which makes it doubly awesome! OUT OF REACH Matt: This was the very last song we wrote for the album and there we were thinking that we had no more songs left in us hahaha. Anyway, it's the Rescue attempt song, it sounded so urgent when I heard it that it just had to be about it. I remember being inspired by Brad Delp from Boston's vocals for this record and I got to go all out with the harmonies, it made my day, I love big harmonies. Ryan: I'd say this song came together quicker than any we've ever written. We'd pretty much done the album and just needed one last song to act us the musical backdrop to a sea rescue. To get the urgency and the panic across, we just basically sat there, banged out the riffs and applied the lyrics and before we knew it we had 'Out of Reach'. I think if we'd really put the song under a microscope and over-analysed it then we'd have lost that sense of urgency we needed to get the message across. ONE FOR THE ROAD Matt: This is one of the first songs that we wrote after finishing up our touring for the Hours record. I just remember how calm and relaxed we were when writing and then this song came out, the first FFAF song with three of us playing guitar. It was a lot of fun to write and got us into the mood of working together nicely. The vocal arrangements at the end of the song sound great, we worked really hard on that to get everyone involved which means yes, even Darran is singing. Lyrically, it's a song from the Eleanor's (the main the characters wife) perspective, spending her last night with her husband before he leaves on his ship. It deals with her emotional attachment and how hard it is to sometimes let go. Ryan: Another one of the earlier songs we wrote. Darran's parts on this song give it an almost 'Oasis' vibe in parts. I think myself and Gareth really lock in with each other more than ever before on this record. Dare I say we've become a proper rhythm section now! Gareth's vocals on this song, too, are the best he's ever recorded. WALK AWAY Matt: I really like the arrangement of this song, and I think the vocals in the pre-chorus came out so well. I remember Ryan playing his home demo for the song and the final version stayed very faithful to it. I even got to play guitar on it too which was pretty cool for me. The song deals with Eleanor and her trying to convince herself that David is never going to come home and that she should make a new life for herself and Isobelle. I think anyone who's ever lost someone very close to them can relate to the feelings of not wanting to move on but having to take those big steps the not let grief and sadness swallow you whole. Ryan: This song started with me just playing round with a loop on my Mac and writing the music around the loop completely on keyboard. It sorted of sounded a bit too "80"'s to me at first, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but when Darran and Kris turned some of the keyboards into guitar parts it was great to hear the track actually rocking! THE SWEETEST WAVE Matt: This is the bad boy, our Epic, I could honestly say that if I wanted one song for us to be remembered by then this would be it. It's like a musical version of Lawrence of Arabia, it's just so vast and powerful. It's very cinematic and is very simple musically yet the dynamic always blows me away, it's also the most musically lush song on the record. I can never get bored of it. The song itself is about finding hope and faith in yourself and learning that it's better to try to overcome your fears than letting them get the better of you. It's a 'close you eyes and step jump from the ledge' song. Ryan: It's hard where to start with this song. It started as just a little piano melody that inadvertently turned the whole writing process on its head. We got a 27 piece orchestra in for this song and they absolutely turned this song into something none of us could have imagined. For me, this song is Funeral for a Friend's finest moment to date. |
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05.10.2007 - FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND ON THE ROAD DIARY |
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Since we're no longer in the studio, we thought it would make more sense to do 'ON THE ROAD' updates. Soooo...if you go on our Youtube channel which is called Funeraltube then you can see the many wonderful things we get up to on the road. Or just us pissing about. You know the score, you saw the studio blogs. Anyway we've put a few short clips up already and, thanks to the people at Shozu mobile who've given us a couple of lovely 3G video phones to use, we'll be updating it pretty much every day. Check it out. Cheers all. FFAF www.youtube.com/funeraltube |
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