Gary Dranow On the Making Of “Golden Child”
What was the creative process like for this particular "Golden Child?"
I came up with the idea for the song which inspired me to write a chord progression which in turned inspired me to write the lyrics. I then shared then with my co-writer, together we worked on the song arrangement in Guitar Pro. Then we worked on the melody for the lyrics and fine-tuned the phrasing of the lyrics based on the melody and phrasing we came up with. Once the guitar pro file had all the parts fleshed out, we sent it to our Drummer/Producer who turned his track around in a day, then we recorded the guitars. Then it was off to our lead singer Caspar, who had his track done in a couple of days. While Caspar was working on the vocals Chris tracked Strings in MIDI. When we got Caspar’s vocals it was back to our mix/master (and drummer) Jason Jones, he did a quick mic so Chris could work out the harmonies, then finally Jason mastered the track. That was all there was to it. We have followed the same process for the other 23 tracks for the album We are now going to release one track per month for the next 20 or so months after which time we should have our fans in place, and we go out and tour for about a year after which time we will finally release the double album Never Give Up.
How did you approach the arrangement and composition of the music for "Golden Child?"
See above
Were there any memorable or standout moments during the recording sessions for "Golden Child?"
When I heard the first mix, I knew we had something special. We all were very anxious to hear the master. Just after we released the song, August 1st, I submitted it to ReverbNation for a Fan Review, we got it back with a 7.8 score (94 percentile) and got a featured artist review (you need to score higher than 7.5) which will happen in the next 7 days or so. All very exciting!
Where do you find inspiration for your songs or musical ideas?
From the churning depths of my consciousness and the world around me. For instance, we have written a song called Mother’s Angry about the climate crisis, which will be our third release and The Cry of War, about Ukraine. We have a song which has a very Celtic feel called Hadrian’s Wall about a Roman Soldier and his life on the wall. So we don’t write your typical rock or alternative songs, in the twenty four songs we cover a great many topics and shift through several genres, AC/DC we aren’t though we have one song, about a homeless veteran in Sanya Monica called Sandy Beaches which was very much inspired at least musically by AC/DC.
How do you approach collaborations with other musicians and maintain creative synergy?
Since we are just starting to release songs, we are contacted artists via skype to see if we can get much more established bands or band leaders to do a primary feature on certain songs. It’s tough going but we have had several responses to our offers but still working out the details.