7/14 ESCAPISM: ‘Toupee Or Not Toupee?’

‘Mean Machines‘ was a surprise. An experiment gone wrong and yet so well.  When Bill and I decided to make our collaboration a ‘band proper’, ‘Mean Machines‘ became the second song we recorded.  We had to follow the majesty of ‘Where We Go Next’.  Not easy to top a song that had so much slavish effort put into it.  So I sat in my studio, exactly as I am now, and stared at the blank screen.  I do a lot of staring at blank screens.  Don’t get me wrong, I do fill my days with other things too!  It’s just that staring at a blank screen is an activity which the modern musician cannot avoid.  In the old days I suppose the equivalent would have been staring at blank studio walls – or watching paint dry in a rehearsal room.  But now we have computer monitors to take some of the burden – to take the weight off our shoulders.  Staring at a computer screen can feel more fulfilling.  Ha ha!

I remember the day.  Some guys were in the house changing my old boiler.  I’m not referring to the girlfriend… I genuinely mean my old boiler (joke Dani xxx).  And I was in my studio staring at the blank screen.  Then I layed down the first beat.  And then the first bass roar.  In a couple of hours I pretty much had the song complete… in its most basic form.  One of the men changing the boiler expressed a bit of interest and would chip in with words of advice!  Ha ha!  But like I say… I had the bare bones of the song completed very quickly.  I’m actually quite proud of the music of ‘Mean Machines‘.  It is quite heavy and persistent.  I also really like some of the orchestral flourishes.

I sent the music to Bill with the title “Mean Machine”.  Yes, I did indeed name it after watching a Burt Reynolds film, but I always assumed the name would end up being changed.  Changed like an old boiler.  But Bill took the spirit of the music along with the temporary title and sold the concept to the world.  He owned that title.  And so with the addition of an ‘s’ that is how it stayed and will always stay.  The song is a grower.  In fact the song has become an entity bigger than Bill or I could ever have imagined.  In hindsight ‘Mean Machines‘ was actually the perfect song for us to work on after ‘Where We Go Next’.  It was a blast and proved that we had something in us to be able to pull off a song really quickly.  The song confirmed that the match of my music and Bill’s lyrics was not a one-off fluke.  And most of all it made us determined to produce a whole album of work.  Along the way we would often look back at ‘Mean Machines’ as being a defining moment and yet not a defining song.  Perhaps as people listen to the album they will decide for themselves the significance of the song.  Now… come on everyone… grow moustaches and stick your toupees on… we’re gonna have a party!!!