Behind The Music Pt.2 - (I) Favor The Brave
(I) Favor The Brave out Friday March 25th.
Hi and welcome to this breakdown of the song (I) Favor The Brave.
This song was the fastest one to write on this record.
As for the the main riff, that became the verse, we have to dig a bit deeper to find the root, I´ll come back to that later.
Let´s start when the song was actually written. 2017, this was the third song, but the first one to make it on this record. As I mentioned in Pt. 1 there was two other songs that was suppose to be on SDM. Read about it HERE.
IT WASN´T HEAVY ENOUGH!
What I normally do when a song is being made, I sit down with my amp or computer and play the riff solo, I normally work around the riff to find where the ends shall meet to make it a loop.
(I have to mention that the idea for this riff came from a friend of mine,
Tobias Oja.
He showed me a riff when we was playing together back in 2017.
It gave me some ideas and I made a riff from that).
Ok, back to it...
When I feel that the riff is strong, I try to colour it and build it up to hit a certain feel. Some riffs may feel too dark, or too up beat or lack of energy. In my opinion, a strong riff has many ways leading out. So if you feel that you can play almost anything after the riff, and it sounds good, I would say it´s strong and sits well within the sound and scale you are using.
So, after getting it all together I only had one problem.
It did lead to something. That something was; IT WASN´T HEAVY ENOUGH!
Everything I put after the riff sounded good, but not nearly as heavy as I wanted it to be.
Holy shit, what happened?
I really loved the dynamics of the riff and the sound, but the heavy part of it was lacking.
So the solution became very simple. And it made the whole song just write it self.
I just changed the feel from a straight 4/4 to a 8th note triplets feel.
I was like, holy shit, what happened? The two hours I had used ended up with me re-arranging the whole riff. That was done just in matter of minutes. It came together as a puzzle with only two parts.
I went to bed that night, just thinking about that riff and how it had changed to something brand new. I didn´t get much sleep. I know some of you can relate to that.
Well, let´s fast forward to the next day.
I woke up, turned on my computer and sat up the drum plugins. I laid down a simple drum beat and grabbed my guitar and started recording the riff.
What happened next was pretty awesome. Normally I just record the riff to some drums to find the tempo, so the demo process can begin.
The tempo that was used and the drums for the majority of the song was the same all the way to the record. Of course the drums is now played by a human, but the foundation is the same, the feel is the same, just so much better.
"This is it, this is the song"
As i continued, the song just kept coming at me as a beast that wanted out of its cage.
I recorded the main riff, and right away, the pre-chorus just popped out, what you hear now is how it was made back then, first take.
I had to stop for a moment, the only thing that I could think of was:
"This is it, this is the song"
I recorded the second guitar track and it flew me straight into the chorus. The only change that is made, is the length of the second one.
And the same happened again, the bridge or ending of the chorus played is self.
It was so fun, just an amazing experience.
So with the foundation recorded in maybe 30 minutes, the rest of the song
was done in a couple of hours.
The complete drum track that was made for the demo is still recognisable in the song today.
The whole thing took two/three days, with all the changes and adjustment,
intro, midsection and ending.
So what you hear on the record today is 90% of the demo that was made in a matter of hours. Of course during the pre production and recording we added harmonies, solo and all that stuff.
Bass and Vocals
I have to highlight the bass track on this song. The way Linus did his bass lines make the song so much more complete. Trust me! I recorded some bass demo tracks. And It can´t be compared to what Linus did with the song.
The vocals of course is a total different story, and we may take that step for you in the future. But as for the melodies and arrangements, It is nothing else but awesome.
What I feel is special and great about this song is the overall flow, heaviness and energy.
I mean the whole spectrum. The whole band just comes together as the beast I talked about earlier.
Teaser - (I) Favor The Brave
Some guitar and bass specs for you
El-Guitar: Washburn - Evertune - Ola Englund signature.
Pickups: Seymour Duncan 59' SH1N / Custom 5 SH14B
Amp: Kemper power rack.
Strings: D'addario XL 11-52
Pick: Dunlop power grip 1,14mm
Computer: Macbook Pro
Software: Logic Pro X
Bass Guitar: Dingwall - NG2
Pickups: FD-3N
Strings: Dingwall
Pick: Fingers
Well I don´t think I can add so much more to this song.
We hope you have enjoyed this little trip Behind The Music - (I) Favor The Brave.
Next Monday we will attack the title track "Sonata Di Morte"
See you on Monday 28th.
Best to you all from us in
Die With Fear