Names Beginning With B

Hi, my name's Ben and my two index fingers have never touched each other.

There is, as I'm sure you're all aware, an interesting correlation between names and destiny. There are disproportionately more butchers called Butcher, as well as statistically significant alliteration linking people's names with not only their jobs (more dentists called David), but where they choose to live (like Brewers who move to Barnstaple). Hell, even my choice to give Butcher as the first example is probably because I particularly like the letter B, for some reason.

Names, like it or not, dictate a good chunk of who we are and what we become. Something with a name has an intrinsic quality and purpose, which is exactly how I feel about the album now that I've named it. A few days after first thinking I should start deciding on a title for it and starting to wrestle with a few ideas, it came very suddenly (as the best ideas do) and on a completely different path from where I'd been heading.

With such a clear and definite title in mind, the album artwork was almost obvious, really. Since there is, as they say, no time like the present, we're shooting the cover photos next week. My ability to contort my already-funny-looking face into an even more nightmarish version of itself finally paid off when it won me first prize in Andy Casey Photography's Funny Faces Competition (raising money for Children in Need along the way); part of the prize is a shoot with Andy (who I now enjoy a good friendship with, forged in the fires of the Christmas Crew), so that kind of neatly ties up with the album's needs.

This is right before I started pulling the funny face.

I'll probably start 'theming' my online presences with photos from the shoot fairly soon after they're done, so I don't want to describe the ideas too much yet; suffice to say they involve me, Joe and Frank again in a similar vein to the 'Ben Dies at The End' cover. A thought actually occurred to me a while after putting together that artwork, which I really hope no-one else has had and which I'll pre-emptively address here, hopefully not in a 'the lady doth protest too much, methinks' way. A nicely wide variety of my musical friends have contributed to what I've recorded in the past, but they're not pictured in any artwork up to now. The reason for having Joe and Frank in the cover for the last, and this, recording is pretty straightforward - the ideas for the photos need me and two other people; Joe is my brother, my best friend and always plays a large part in not only recording, but writing and producing the albums, Frank is one of my oldest friends and invariable plays on most of what I do. I hope that all kind of makes sense and it doesn't seem weird that I want to explain it; I just have this nagging awareness that people on the outside of the musical process sometimes have different interpretations of what we all do and if there's one thing I can't bear, it's misunderstandings.

As far as the actually important part of the album goes (you know, the music) I'm now done with preliminary writing for ten of the final eleven songs. One, I've written specifically for Joe to sing lead vocals on; it's a song about what we've done together and deals with his imminent departure for more Bristolian climbs. The other is a bit more lighthearted and tells a couple of stories about situations that I've found myself in that have been super fucking awkward; you're going to love it. I've also started putting together the musical foundations for the eleventh song, so it's all coming together in good time.

Over the Christmas break, along with shooting for the album artwork Joe, Frank and I are rehearsing for our (rare-as-a-group) gig on the 30th, which you should be able to find out about by clicking here. It's been literally years since we played a full-length gig together and I can't wait; we're going to be busting out a few old tunes, as well as a couple of covers (one of which is erection-inducingly good). While we're together to practice for that, we're also hoping to spend some time talking over the new album before starting recording in the couple of weeks following.

Just so you know, this jumper is not coming off over Christmas

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The rest of my Christmas week is going to be taken up with shooting a video for the acoustic song I recorded last week. The very talented Sam Brown, fresh from shooting the new SevereZerø video, is coming down for the shoot, which should fit into a couple of days - I've got a couple of loose ideas for the video, but I should kind of get those finalised before the camera starts recording, I guess.

All in all, it's going to be a pretty busy festive season - in the best way. I hope all of you lovely people have a great time and spend it doing something that makes you smile for a bit.

YOU ARE UPDATE!

- Ben