NOMINATED FOR TV AWARD IN INDONESIA

We’re nominated for a Dahsyat Award in Indonesia! We played live at the TV show in July when we were there, and it definitely was a one of a kind experience. We enjoyed it a lot, and it’s fantastic that we’re now nominated ‘Guest of the year’. Indonesian people can vote on us through SMS, by texting the DA Nomination Code to 6288 (Rp.2000,- / SMS). So to vote for us: Send ‘BT5 DA’ to 6288. Thanks everyone in Indonesia, we’re honored! Read more about it here.

How to vote, in Indonesian: Untuk mendukung pilihanmu bisa ketik DA Kode Nominasi Kirim Ke 6288 (Rp.2000,- /SMS) . Contoh : DA BT5 kirim ke 6288.

Q&A WITH HUBRECHT ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM

My reply took longer then expected, because there were so many good questions! Here we go:

What delays did/will you use? Pedal board walk-through please! By Maurits Nienhuis on Facebook
What kind of effect pedals do you use Hubrecht? By @Anthea on Twitter
In the studio we always use digital effects. All delays on the guitars come from Pro-Tools, no pedals were used while tracking. The great thing about that is, that you can adjust and change any delay or effect whenever you want. It’s really flexible. If you record parts with a certain amount or type of effect in realtime, and you change your mind later on in the process, you have to re-record the entire part. That can be pretty time consuming and frustrating. Live I use a Dunlop 95Q Cry Baby wah, a Dunlop DVP-1 volume pedal, and all delay, reverb, compression, phaser, boost, tremolo and pitch come from my TC Electronic G-System. With my G-System I can switch multiple effects like delay and pitch (for example for the intro of ‘In Your Arms’) and channels on my amp at the same time. In almost every part of our songs we use different effects and gain settings on the amp, so with this setup I can switch all of this really quick without too much tap dancing.

How many times did you guys watch the Bold and the Beautiful while recording? ; ) By Tim van Doorn on Facebook
Haha not a single time. Sorry to disappoint you. I did watch a lot of movies the past few weeks. When you’ve been concentrating and focusing on music the entire day in the studio your brain is fried at the end of the day. At that point I love to just watch a movie and don’t think about anything. I watched a lot of movies starring Jason Statham with Laurens; ‘Chaos’ was our favorite.

Read the rest of this entry »

VIDEO UPDATE: STUDIO TOUR

One of the questions in the Q&A I’m answering right now was ‘Can you give us a small tour of the studio?’. Well here you go! Will try to upload the other questions and answers tomorrow.

THE STORY ON HOW THE SECOND ALBUM WAS WRITTEN

So it’s a hot winter morning in Florida and I’m hanging out at the motel pool. It makes me think that when I’m away from home for a long time I always tend to contemplate everything we’re doing and I usually start to see things in a different light.

When our first album Lightspeed got released I felt a huge sense of accomplishment: I wrote at least 25 songs for it and after all the knitpicking and hard work, we created an album that I’m to this day still extremely proud of. Every single note is a result of putting heart and soul in it and it’s an indescribable feeling whenever people experience the same when they listen to it.

Lightspeed did amazing things for us: we toured more than 15 different countries, went to China, Japan, Indonesia, heard our own music on the radio and tv, sold out shows, toured with some of our childhood heroes, did Holland’s two most wellknown festivals… It felt like all of the dreams I had as a kid came true in a split-second and I’ll forever tell everyone how grateful I am.

Then the moment when you start writing the second album and realize it should actually be at least as good (or better) than the first one. It is widely known by everybody in the music business and it can paralyze you if you find yourself thinking too much about it. Lots of bands and artists have choked on it.

I started writing again and compared every new idea to our older songs; it’s easy to throw away a song if it seems not good enough. I actually didn’t necessarily feel other people’s pressure so much, but just felt the bar that I raised a little higher for myself. For example, I wanted every single melody to be really strong, emotional and memorable. And every lyric to be clear but still intriguing.

In the whole process I’ve been at places where I cursed my own perfectionism and self-discipline. There were weeks when I was working like a mad professor, trying out a million things and actually not seeing any other people for a long time. There are days when creativity doesn’t give you what you’re hoping for, and all the while you see the clock ticking towards a deadline.

Imagine how big of a relief it is when pieces finally fall into place and I actually started finishing songs that I thought were very good. I listened to it a hundred times in a row, raised my hands up in the air and even shed some tears at times when my own words cut through me like a knife.

Sometimes words and melodies form in your mind and they can end up being decent; at other times things seem to form in your subconscience and they can end up great. But when every bone in your body immediately tells you that it’s not good but great, to me that’s magical.

On the moment I’m writing this we finished recording the whole second album and only have 3 days of mixing left in Plush Studios in Orlando. Our amazing producer James Paul Wisner once again proved that there’s noone in the world that understands our music like he does. Recording the first album I learned so much of him: I spent every second looking over his shoulder and I can tell that it shows in our new songs.

There’s no feeling like the one that says: mission complete. The album comes out April 6th. It would mean a lot if you’d purchase it and you’d feel a part of the excitement that I do now.

See you soon!
Robin

STUDIO VIDEO UPDATE: MIXING

Preview from the studio where we are mixing the tracks. Things are starting to sound fantastic!