Fightstar front-man Charlie Simpson picks up the sticks to complete recording of new album
By bandweblogs on Mar 23, 2009 in Albums, Bands, New Releases, Press Releases | Tags: Charlie Simpson, Fightstar
“This is our biggest sounding record and we’ve done it with our bare hands, just blood, sweat and tears the whole way.”
As dramatic as it sounds, Fightstar vocalist and guitarist, Charlie Simpson could almost be accused of underestimating the challenges the band faced during the recording of ‘be human’, their third album and first self-funded release.
The bulk of recording for ‘be human’ took place at Treehouse Studios, Bown’s studio, a small wood cabin in a field just outside Chesterfield in Derbyshire. They recorded between August and December 2008, taking over seventy days in total – the longest the band has worked on a record so far – interrupted by touring and promotion. The record was almost not completed at all when drummer Omar Abidi broke his wrist almost halfway through the process…
“It was a full break, there was no touching bone,” Abidi says with a wince, “I had to have an emergency operation a week later to put two pins in my wrist.” Drums had only been recorded for six tracks – recording had hit a roadblock. But rather than recruit a replacement or delay recording, the band decided, as Simpson puts it, “to keep it in the family”.
Charlie immediately began training and took to the drum stool. “Omar wrote the parts and used me as the body,” he says. Abidi affably describes the situation as like “a director guiding a really good actor” and on one memorable occasion, the pair performed in tandem. On the album’s most incendiary track, Damocles, Abidi handled the kick and snare drums while Simpson played the rest. But while the band coped, the loss of Abidi’s powerhouse presence on drums was by no means easy. Westaway reveals how desperate things were: “We were running out of studio time. Charlie’s hands were bleeding but we had to get it done.”
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