Louder Than The Music

In the next part of our series of guest blogs from LTTM friend Haydon Spenceley, we find out about some of the songs newly formed band Ghost Tree are working on as they record their album in Nashville.

Greetings friends, we're coming to the end of another day in Nashville. In a shock move, it rained today. I missed most of it, as I and the band have spent most of the day cooped up in Viking Studios doing pre-production. We're in Brown Owl Studios on Thursday and Friday recording the rhythm section, so we're working hard on formats of songs, and getting stuff together. Today we've worked on Glorious and You They See. Glorious is a really vibey worship song for the Church, which has taken a lot of sweat, energy (and not a few tears) to get finished, and it feels great now we're getting to the point of having a solid version for it.

You They See is a trippy, rhythmic rock song about who God is and what our identity is, and can be, in Him. I felt like I didn't have a true sense, or appreciation of who God was, and what His character is, and neither did I really understand who I was, who I had been, who God has made me, and what God's plan for my future is. The song comes all dressed up in a “British-sounding” slab of minor key goodness. Kevin and Brandon (our producers) seem to like this one a lot! It certainly grooves a lot. It fascinates me as a writer. Glorious has been a real struggle to write, taking a couple of years, and only getting finished with a final re-write on Saturday of last week! You They See took half an hour. It just shows that it's not all about graft and stress when writing songs. Sometimes it can be fun and come easily too!

There's nothing like the sight of a room full of head-nodding, grooving musician-types to tell you that a song is getting somewhere near the point where it feels pretty great. I really enjoy this one, I get to let rip a fair bit vocally. Often when I'm leading worship at home I get told I shout a lot (can't think why). Well, here, it seems being loud is a good thing! We've got Hope, All For You and Hallelujah to push through tomorrow. Hopefully the heat, the thunder storms, and the fireflies will allow us to get through what we need to. I'm still debating whether to regret having my head shaved on my birthday. It's certainly good to have a bit of a draught going up there now!