The Dave Foster Band

2 months ago

So after Dreamless was released it became apparent that the whole solo thing I’d been trying to avoid had kind of happened; this was largely down to Dinet and Al. However, something that was beginning to bug me was that even though it started out as my solo project, it had evolved into the two of us, Dinet and I so along with our talented friends Leon Parr, Yatim Halimi and Riccardo Romano, (together with a host of guest musicians) we became the Dave Foster Band.

For the next album, we had loftier ambitions and wanted to include real strings and spend more time tracking to get the best out of each performance. As such we needed to raise more funds than we did for Dreamless, so chose to use Kickstarter and thankfully at the eleventh hour we made our target. We then set about planning for the new album, and as usual I would email Dinet demos of tracks that I had recorded at home and she would write lyrics and melodies over the top of them. It was a really exciting time as the tracks were evolving very quickly. We booked Pete Waterman’s studio (PWL) for a few weeks starting in October 2018.

Once we were all set up, Leon Parr and Stu Browne were booked in and the whole project began.

As you can guess from the October 2018 start date, the album took longer than anticipated because Leon and I were busy with SRB in South America and Mexico as well as other things that were happening which just lengthened the whole process. However, the cool thing is that we had time for things to marinade and take shape, which is such a rarity these days and there’s really no substitute for that time to sit back and review.

The performances on this album are players at the top of their game, every single musician was stellar and I will forever be grateful. It was also interesting for me as I was pushing each musician, and in turn, they pushed me.

I won’t run through every track, but rather a few memories from recording the album. The strongest memory I have is recording the solos for ‘Pata Dura’; Al is the king of getting the best out of me and he wasn’t too impressed with my first few takes of the solo, which were totally improvised. This pushed me to try harder with each take, to the point where he suggested we ‘go and put the kettle on’! I got annoyed with my own playing so the take that made it to the album is me, very agitated and annoyed that my guitar was going out of tune with all the whammy abuse...brilliant. That's what I wanted, and Al had got this out of me!

We recorded the vocals for ‘Karma’ at my house as we had run out of money for the tracking. There was one day left to write the lyrics and record the vocals before Dinet was due to fly home. I provided the tea and for the first time we wrote something together in the same room at the same time. It’s strange now when I think back that on the third album we actually wrote together, this showed us both how musically connected we are. Dinet’s vocals on “Karma’ are superb.

I wrote the lyrics for ‘Anything’ but I just wasn’t happy with my vocals and asked the ever splendid Martin Jakubski to sing the male part. Martin had a show coming up in Wigan with StillMarillion which isn't far from me so we arranged that after the show he would come over and track his vocals. Most of you will know how epic Martin is as a singer but he’s also incredibly creative and I loved that afternoon tracking those vocals and also the vocals Martin did for ‘Ghosts’.

A few weeks before we were due to start recording I had begun watching a history program about the second world war. I saw something that broke my heart, an older gentleman sat on his own among a load of empty chairs at a VE day celebration. Each chair represented a member of his troop that had passed away. It really hit home to me how little time we have with each other. Each year, me, my brother and the lads I grew up with go out, and every time, we have our photo taken in the same pub, behind the bar holding the same pumps. I have one of these photos hung up in my hallway and I know one day there will be a photo with an empty space… That whole thing became ‘All That Remains’.

When we wrote this I had always thought that in order to complete it, we would need strings, not a synth playing strings but real strings. Al introduced me to a very talented chap called Steve Boyce-Buckley who had been Cher’s MD at some point amongst a gazillion other top line artists and was now working out of Lisa Stansfield's studio in Rochdale. Steve is a brilliant string arranger so we employed him to score the parts for ‘All That Remains’ as well as ‘Forfeit’. Leon and I sat in on the sessions and it was remarkable what these guys did. I was awestruck with their musicianship, performing skills as well as them being lovely people to spend time with.

Once the album was recorded and mixed we were ready to focus on the artwork for the album. I’d worked with my good friend Neal Moran on a few projects (Neal is also one of the guys in the annual photo). We came up with the idea of using ultra violet lights so we organised a photo shoot and asked Al Unsworth’s wife Trai, who is a talented makeup artist to come along and help out. It was a very funny and cold night in a studio in St. Helens that Neal (and also one of our other mates Neil Isherwood) shot what would become the very striking artwork for ‘Nocebo’.

Both Dinet and I had challenging teenage years and we both relate to the nocebo effect.

And finally, for those that have asked, a nocebo is the opposite of a placebo…. ... See MoreSee Less