‘Speedball’, one of the tracks on the new Wendy James album ‘I Came Here To Blow Minds’, was recorded in Sydney with Australian musicians.
‘I Came Here To Blow Minds’ is the first real solo album from the former Transvision Vamp singer featuring her own songs. In 1993, she released ‘Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears’ featuring songs written for her by Elvis Costello.
Most of ‘I Came Here To Blow Minds’ was recorded in Paris with a French band except for one song, ‘Speedball’ that was recorded in Sydney with an Australian band.
Wendy told Undercover.fm how it came about:
“I had recorded and produced 12 of the 13 songs I'd written for my new album in Paris already, but one remained unrecorded: ‘Speedball’,” she said. “I considered letting go of the song and giving it up to fate that I'd not been able to complete it and so be it, but I'm not like that and the refusal to give in to circumstance was paramount in my mind as I arrived on a pre-scheduled DJ trip to Sydney”.
“I resolved that much as I had done in Paris, on arrival in Sydney I would ask around and email friends for suggestions of good indie musicians I could perhaps gather around me to get the final song done. The connection came out of Melbourne originally, from the editor of Australian VICE magazine (Briony Wright)… she recommended a local Melbourne band to me and I thought maybe I could book a couple of nights in Melbourne and fly in and get the song done there... but it turned out that one of them was in Sydney and his girlfriend at the time (Kym Ellery) recommended a Sydney guitarist she knew called Liam O' Brian who was a local Surrey Hills guy that was playing in a Sydney band called 'The Scare' (now split)…”
“By the time I had got to this point of following the phone number trail and arriving at Liam I only had 3 days left of my stay in Sydney: that day - Friday and the weekend. I met Liam early in the morning for coffee just off Oxford Street and thought "Well at least we could get the guitars done to a click?" He said "No problem" and to send him the MP3 guide I had of the song and he'd learn it...”
“I asked him if he knew a good studio we could grab some time in and he said "Well, I think you know Scott Horscroft don't you? He said he messaged you months ago" my mind drew a blank, but then slowly remembered a really great message on Myspace I'd received from an Australian producer telling me he'd like to work with me... (but for some reason I had him down as a Melbourne based person...) then Liam said... "Well Sam (Pearton) our drummer is Scott's assistant at his studio which is just around the corner off Crown Street… why don't you phone Scott and I'll call the rest of the musicians in the band (Brock Fitzgerald - Lead Guitar & Wade Keighran - Bass) and see if we are all free tomorrow to come in and just get it all as a live take."
“So over our coffees, Liam phoned The Scare and I phoned Scott. 20 minutes later we had a 48 Track Neve Studio at BJB in Surrey Hills and The Scare coming in at 11am the next day to run through and hopefully record. I went back to where I was staying, got on my laptop and sent them all out the MP3 for "Speedball" and just thought... "Wow. That's Fucking Great…"
“Next day, Saturday morning, we all turned up at BJB, said hello, and plugged in our guitars, I played through showing them the pushes and intonation etc and at about 3pm Scott and his studio assistants had everything mic'd up and we were in a go situation. Ironically Liam had to leave so Brock took over his guitar duties: Rhythm and Lead, and we started taking live takes, all in our booths, top to bottom and around 4.30pm we got one that was just so perfect, you know the Apex of our energy... we just got it right, and my vocals also had so much good expression in them... we all piled into the studio and listened to playback, Scott balancing the mix as we listened down. We knew we had it, it sounded like a monster juggernaut! I said what I wanted in the idea for a lead guitar pass... so Brock ran back in and gave me a couple of those and then we all gathered around a live mic to do tambourine and handclaps...”
“By 8 o clock pm we had it... and Scott had kept pace all day so the rough mix was actually done at the point of departure... “
“It was an awesome day, the kind of day where you are living entirely in the moment, relying on your wits, your instinct, your confidence and your raw talent... it's the best feeling in the world”.
“I went home to Manhattan that Monday with my album complete, and some months later returned to Sydney and just holed up in BJB with Scott and we mixed the album together... I brought it back to NYC and handed it off to Fred Kevorkian at Avatar Studios to Master… (he had done all the White Stripes and Iggy records and friends I had recommended him to me.)
And so! That is how "Speedball" and my whole album "I Came Here To Blow Minds" came to have the Australian Connection”.
‘I Came here To Blow Minds’ was released in October 2010 through iTunes. A vinyl version will be released for retail in March.
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