The ‘Heads’ new album – progress report

Wellington Heads is currently recording their 6th album.

Since April, we’ve had a number of recording sessions with Miklin at his recording studio in rural Hutt Valley, about 30 minutes from central Wellington.

We’ve chosen eleven songs from our most recent repertoire – these are songs that either Bill, Geoff or Neil have brought along to practice in the last few years. The band has then taken each song and developed it - each band member adding their instrumentation and creative ideas to help realise the song in its finished form. This can sometimes take months as we only get together on a weekly basis, and sometimes we need to rehearse a set list for an upcoming gig, rather than working on the ‘new’ songs.

We’ve been playing most of these eleven songs at gigs for a couple of years now. The songs grow and change over time as we get to know them better, so when we bring them to the recording studio we’ve got a really good idea about how we want each song to sound – it’s structure, dynamics, what solos we want (and how they go), the brass arrangements, and the beginnings and the endings (very important!).

April and May saw Nic (drums), Geoff (bass), Neil (rhythm guitar) and Bill (lead guitar) getting most of the rhythm tracks completed. This is like the foundations of the songs that we can then build on with guitar parts, trumpet and sax, other instruments, vocals and harmonies.

In June, Phil and Tom recorded trumpet and tenor saxophone parts. Phil has written some amazing brass ensemble pieces for each song and as well, they have both added solos to a number of the songs. Bill’s also played some wonderful guitar solos and we’re now getting ready to record some harmonica along with lead and backing vocals.

We still have a fair amount to do and we’re taking our time. Hopefully we’ll be getting to the mixing stage in a month or so – but you never know (our last album – Southern Night Sky - took about 3 years to complete)!!

Here’s a couple photos taken in the studio during some of the recording sessions.

Cheers - Neil