A songwriter's perspective

This is something I penned in late may I think, about how I startet writing songs and how I feel I've progressed as a writer.

Until early 2012 this project was really just me writing songs, occationally showing ideas to Andy while trying my best to explain how I envisioned the final result. Not always an easy task, let me tell you that. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if people thought my songwriting was just riffs and lots of talk, which is alI've been able to convey to others before we started pre-producing early this year. And what a huge relief it was to hear the first pre-productions with guitars in time, programmed drums and an arrangement very close to what I envisioned. Before that I didn't really know if my ideas would work practically. I recorded a lot of riffs, sometimes sequenced like in the final songs, just to remember them. But the final arrangements only existed in my head.

Ever since the first band I joined back in 2002, I've wanted to contribute creatively. I realise now that I probably wasn't ready for it back then, but it didn't stop me from having fun with bass lines (yes, I started out as a bassist) that I came up with. Whenever I showed my ideas to the others, the response was usually "cool, maybe we can use that in another song". I don't think it sucked, it just wasn't interesting enough. In the second band I played with we were going to be all democratic, everyone was supposed to bring ideas blah blah blah. Didn't work at all since none of us really knew what we were doing, but at least I got a couple of my riffs into the first song that we did. Except, the guitarist played it nothing like I did and in the end it was changed anyway before we dropped the song.

Still, I kept making stuff, dreaming of someday writing a good song or doing a solo project. The solo thing almost got serious when I, inspired by Bathory, wanted to do a black metal project on my own. I wrote music for two or three songs but nothing became of it. Later on, when both bands I'd been in were history, I started planning a death/thrash metal band and did at least two songs for it, one which I even rehearsed with a drummer, but we didn't keep it up. A major problem was that all the "songs" I wrote were instrumental riff sequences, there was no room for vocals in it. I had no idea how to deal with vocals. Still I kept penning thrash ideas for some time, but rarely finished anything. It was all intro riffs that was builing up to something that never came. Some were quite cool, but the style was just too technically difficult for me, and I could not do a thrash solo at all.

I remember very well the first time I did a riff in the Sabbath style. It was a simple very "War Pigs" inspired intro thing that lead to some more upbeat riffs and then back to that heavy intro. It was in 2006. I had just rediscovered Black Sabbath, which was now my favorite band, and I was getting into Candlemass and Pentagram. I have a recording of those riffs played on my BC Rich Jr-V (that I bought from a friend when I wanted to be a thrasher) with a metal-zone pedal through a cheap mini amp. Sounds like shit, and even worse, I couldn't play my own riffs right! I fucked up all the time. But it was the start of something, and those riffs are in a song that I hope we will record someday.

Still, I was ambitious with my ideas and didn't know how to finish things properly. I started on other ideas in the same vein and got further each time, but at some point I didn't know where the song was going. And I tried things that were too complicated for me at the time. After a while I actually worked out a solo part for the 2006-song so I was constantly progressing. The turning poing came in 2009 after seeing Pagan Altar at the Metal Merchants Festival. I have no idea why that did the trick, but their combination of Sabbath riffs and NWOBHM melodies just got me going. Suddenly I came up with a great ending part for the 2006-song, I started humming vocal lines while playing and I finished other ideas that I had. More and more the ideas seemed to come by themselves and fit together like actual songs.

I had a great time combining and finishing some of my first ideas during that spring of 2009 and it was about that time I joked with Andy that I wanted him so sing in my band. Except, I wasn't joking. After a break in songwriting that summer, don't know why, things happened again in late 2009. I was going through a lot of emotional stuff and so I used the guitar to escape a little from everything. And it brought out the best in me, really. A lot of the stuff on the forthcoming demo/EP was written at this time and arranged later. This was also the time when I discovered Count Raven, one of my favorite bands, and I became really inspired by Dan Fondelius' way of thinking riffs, melodies and arrangements. All my best to him!

I'll continue this story later on. Then I'll write about how SH came to be and the songs and ideas I've been working on the past couple of years.
- S