Day 3  - an adventure at night

In the morning we went to Neufchatel – en Bray, but all the shops are closed on Monday so we bought some meat at the butcher and bread at the bakery, then headed home.
Up for today are two songs again; She Pulls her Gun and Howling Wolf. Both of them are quite loud and rough songs. The cows are panicking as soon as they hear the roaring guitar. Not that much of an audience today that is. We’re really satisfied with how today went. The tracks sound really loud, thick and filthy...just as we like it! 

Besides recording we’ve been on an adventure twice later tonight. First, we went exploring the cornfields and the forest. As we walked deeper into the forest we climbed uphill and discovered an old house with chopped wood and machines in the backyard. A perfect setting for a horror movie.  And of course we didn’t take the easy way back. It happened to be that we basically got stuck in the forest on a dead and between bushes and trees, had to slip under some fence and make it all the way up to the top of the cornfields again, where we couldn’t be more tempted to push one of the hayrolls down.  Later at night when it was really dark, we went out with torches to the other side of the cornfields, watching the farmers work late at night and watching the sky full of stars above our heads.  

Recording in France - PART 2

Day two – first day of recording

Waking up to a beautiful sight of hills, trees and cows; that’s what we get here by looking out the window at nine in the morning. We get ready to mic up the drumkit and plug in the amplifiers. Then a quick ride to the supermarket, where we buy everything we like...especially TOETJES!
When we return to the house, there’s a dead sparrow laying in the grass. You’d think; what are the odds? As the album we’re recording is called ‘Battle the Sparrows’!

After breakfast we have a quick look around in the village. A hill brings us up to a nice view over the big cornfields. On our way down we decide to explore around the house a little bit more. We just slip under some fences and find ourselves another ruin wall and six cows. We decide to get the rusty old guitar from the house and play a song to go on film. An amazing audience those cows… they really seem to listen. I think the cows are an important part in this story, since there’s not much more livelihood around. 

Recording is going pretty good and most of all quickly. A couple of drumtakes and we have it all settled for Scream Louder. We decide, since we’re in the recording flow, to record the second one straight after that.
We plug in the amps, guitar pedals and get ready for guitar recordings. Really awesome, as we use two amps on deafening volume, nice and handmade effect pedals and three different guitars. Guitars growling all over the peaceful hills of northern France. 

check out the video part 2:

 

Recording in France - PART 1

"the journey and the arrival"

First of all we’d like to say that we’re very proud to finally be recording our tracks in this amazing house and with our good friend and recording engineer Chris Hamilton.

Also we dedicate this blog and our record to ‘Spreeuwtje’ the Sparrow †… that lived and died in our backyard.

A six hour drive from Leeuwarden, through Belgium and Northern France brought us to the beautiful country side of Bival; a small and almost deserted place in France. It’s nice out here. Hills and cows pass your sight as we're cruising along the small roads of the village. The road gets quite rough as we progress and get closer to our main goal. Just one more rough road downhill - we’re quietly praying the car won’t break down – and there it appears … the massive house. We are here!

The house looks a million years old – actually we’re quite convinced it is – and it’s got a big yard around it, surrounded by pieces of the original town wall. If you look past the walls you see a forest going uphill and on the other side you find yourself staring at cows.

We’re getting a warm welcome from Chris, whom we will be recording with for the week.
First; a nice cold beer and then the grand tour of the house. We can say “Grand” now actually, since we’re in France and because the house really IS massive.

We enter the first room, with a big fireplace, and pass through a door that brings us to a hall. Chris tells us he recorded drums there last time. The stairway down brings us into a really old wine cellar…it looks amazing. Up the stairs we go to the attic where two beautiful white and brown owls fly around...; in other words, this house is massive and amazing.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO OF THE DAY: