A report from the bass player

When I was a lot younger I had at least two ideas about what the fun part of ‘being in a band’ might mean. Firstly, I thought it was all about the song as everyone hears it. The Beatles song I heard on the radio ‘was’ the Beatles and all I understood about bands meant creating those few minutes of magical stuff that played on the radio. The second thing was that being in band would mean I knew what the song was about and what all the words were.

Not long after I joined my first band it became evident that nobody really knew what the songs were about. As for the lyrics, there were times when even the singer didn’t know what the words were.

But the real revelation, something that has been highlighted for me recently, is that the real magic about being in a band is the period you spend creating the music. It’s great to hear the finished tune belting out of your car’s stereo but by the time that’s happening you’re already thinking about the next piece.

Back in the world of New Accelerator we’re writing and arranging our next batch of songs. Previously we had four almost complete songs and our newly arrived singer wrote melodies and lyrics to complete them. This time all four of us are part of the process. That’s four creative people with opinions and ideas. Luckily this is another band with no ego and so no amount of shouting or posturing is likely to get a bad idea through. Not that there is any shouting or posturing.

As I’ve already mentioned here, I’ve brought a different instrument in for these new songs. The  previous four featured fretless bass (traditionally tuned in fourths); these all have touch guitar (tuned in fifths).

Meanwhile our guitarist is designing and building his own guitar amps, our drummer is moving the beats around and pushing his own boundaries and our singer is stretching herself. She’s written a rare lyric that would pass the Bechdel test (there should be more of these coming) and is currently working words around a 7/4 verse.

We are having fun.