There is always a first for everything...
Previous projects I was involved in, I found myself usually on the outside when it came to writing (I call it the Ringo effect).
With my passion project getting closer to reality every day, I've come to resent some of those I've worked with in the past.
Why? Because songwriting is extremely satisfying. This far exceeds writing novels and short stories by a mile.
The one marker that songwriting shares with novel writing is freedom, especially having control of the content. This is in no way saying that I always want control, not at all. But after playing music for...sigh...decades, it's refreshing to have control.
Collaboration is amazing as well, don't get me wrong, especially if you are lucky and find another that you can gel with and make amazing compositions. Well I'm still waiting to find that.
So now what? What do you start with? Lyrics? Riffs? Oh hell, I don't know. I've been asked when I was writing fiction how do I go about it. Concept? Short story expanded? Storyboards?
Whatever came natural. I never did a full outline or plot, I let the story dictate the direction. Sometimes to great effect, sometimes less.
Sometimes the lyrical content of a song is, in theory, what the music is wrapped around. Other times, it is the lyrics that are made to fit the music.
I find myself at a 50/50 in this regard.
Especially with the first album I'm writing myself.
The theme was set during the initial concept of what I creatively and emotionally wanted as the end result.
An overlying theme permeates the songs, it is not a concept nor an unrelated grouping of music. Loose ties between each track is what I am accomplishing with this release.
The title is also a loose connection to the follow up if that would see the light of day (one step at a time, I have no desire to release anything quickly just because I can).
I do touch on The Jonestown Mass Suicide, the self destructive nature of a former band mate and a close friend's suicide. But the theme is not death, it is about the darkness of life and in parts, the total obliteration of the soul by illness.
It happened this way because I simply let the material dictate the direction. That's the great thing about it all...
As mich as you think you are making the art, it's actually the other way around.
This is FILTH in a nutshell (a rotted, decaying nutshell).
