"Making a Change" with Billy Bragg

I think it was a couple of months ago in the green room of Express FM that I heard we were going to given the chance to write and record a song with Billy Bragg. I am now sat writing this just a few days after a day at Crossley Farm Studio recording with the man himself.

The process began a couple of week ago when we met in Winchester for our regular first Monday rehearsal. We spent an awesome evening writing with Billy, who gave us some amazing thoughts and advice. By the end of the night we had the basis of the song “Making a Change”. Each one of us there had given something to the song, it truly was a collaborative effort and I’m really proud to have been a part of it.

For me though the real fun was last Monday in the studio. I happily woke at 4am (which is highly unusual) and made my way to Winchester to meet Scott, who then kindly drove us to bath. We didn’t know what to expect of the day ahead but were not disappointed in the least. We arrived and met Gareth from Changing Tunes who introduced us to Charlie who was busy setting up mics and isolation booths for the cabs.

The Live room was beautiful and looked to be a converted barn with bare stone walls and wooden beams. I soon spotted a lovely Yamaha Kit at the far end of the room and was asked to make myself comfortable, which wasn’t difficult at all. Before too long we were all there and in place, putting the finishing touches to the song. The Recording process was relatively simple from our point of view as we were recording together live. This meant we simply played it over and over a number of times, hopefully getting better each time, until we had a take that both Gareth and Charlie were happy with.

By about 1pm the hard work for most of us was done and it was over to Davey to lay down the vocals. It was a pleasure, as it always is, to listen to him layer harmony after harmony until your listening to a ‘Mercuryesque’ choir of voices. It was during this process that Billy joined us, and it became an ever greater pleasure to sit in the control room with him listening to Davey work his magic.

It was then Billy’s turn to record. We all watched in awe (and with cameras in hand) as he picked up the guitar and added exactly what was needed to lift the track to another level. To end the session we all gathered around the mic for the obligatory gang vocals with Billy in the middle leading us all through the last chorus. And then we were done.

For some people this day would be nothing special, just an everyday experience. For others it would be a boring ‘who cares’ sort of a day. For me the day was perfect and amazing and although quite long it was ultimately way too short as I feel as if I could have stayed forever.

I have to thank everyone involved, Simon, Scott, Gareth, Lizzie, Davey, Ian, Vinny, Brian, Charlie and of course Billy.