Writing songs for many years, I had always written about certain subjects or feelings I had towards them. That was my main source of inspiration. I had never written music either dedicated to or inspired by someone. Lack of support always drove me away from doing so (so much so that I gave up making and playing music for a certain period of time in my life). As I said on a Facebook post: "If your better half is a musician who has never written a song for you, there's a very good chance you're doing something really wrong."

But things changed sometime back in 2012, when I finally had a good reason to write a song for someone special. Someone who cared. Someone who was there when I first started playing guitar more seriously.

I first wrote one piece on the acoustic guitar that ended up as the song's intro and main verses, and then I wrote an arpeggiated lick that ended up being the ending section of the song (buy played on the electric guitar).

Armed with what I had that far, I sat down one morning, wrote some lyrics, wrote three more riffs on the guitar that would work as verse, bridge, and chorus, wrote the vocal lines and a small guitar melody to go along the chorus, and the song was done; all of that took just a couple of hours!

This process was somewhat different from the other songs I wrote previously: mostly because I used to mainly think from a guitarist's point of view, so it was all about making the riffs the most fun to play. As I was writing Looking For You, I focused on the song as a whole, and ended up not spending too much time trying to make the riffs sound more complicated than they needed to be.

In that same afternoon, I sat down and recorded the song: first a guide track with guitars, then drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and finally, the vocals.

I didn't really have anything in mind as far as drawing inspiration from my musical influences. Once I finished writing the song, however, I noticed that it does resemble somewhat one of my main influences: Yngwie Malmsteen. Opening the song with an arpeggiated clean guitar, having simple riffs for bridge and chorus… those things remind me of some of Yngwie's stuff (songs such as Forever One, for instance). This influence also surfaces a little in the guitar solo I wrote.

It had been just a couple of months since I got my drum kit. Most of my drumming experience came from playing Rock Band on the X-Box! When writing the drum parts for my song, I just tried to play the first thing that came to mind that my body could play, as I'm not really a drummer.

After jamming to the backing track for 30 minutes or so, I recorded the drums in two or three takes. I think it came out very spontaneous and organic, given my drum skills at the time.

Guitar is my main instrument, and I really like the drums, but bass guitar is something I still don't explore much. For this song, I just kept it simple and followed the rhythm guitar.

Prior to this, my only other experience playing bass had been helping out a friend's Yngwie Malmsteen cover band (which means, keep it simple and follow the guitar once in a while!). :)

If I remember correctly, I spent about an hour working on writing and recording the guitar solo for the song. I essentially played around for a little bit improvising over the backing track, and once I got some pieces I liked, I hit the record button. At that point I was sticking with the couple of pieces I liked, and then improvising the remaining bits.

I think I tried recording it three or four times, and then got one take I thought was a keeper. The next day, when I was shooting the video for the song, I had to learn what I recorded, as I wasn't completely sure. I think I got pretty close to it, but not 100%, and that shows a little bit in the video, as what I'm playing doesn't quite sync with what was recorded.

The lyrics were written relatively fast, as I pretty much wrote what I was thinking at that moment in regards to this special person I got back in my life. The lyrics talk about how much I needed to know how this person was doing (or if she was even still alive…), how music had played a part in keeping memories alive, how staying in touch was important, and how staying out of touch made us feel.

With the lyrics written, I tried a first pass at the vocal lines, but they didn't stick; fortunately, the second pass worked for me. Singing isn't something easy for me to do, but I'm glad I can write vocal lines that somehow work well for my voice (or so I think!).

When creating the vocal lines, I used the FourTrack app on my iPhone. I recorded the main guitar on one track, and started to experiment with vocals on another, until I found what I thought worked best for me.

This song is about my search for somebody who I could never forget, but had gone on several years without knowing of her whereabouts.

I was feeling happy for having found her. For so many years I thought I was never going to see her again, and I really felt bad. Finding her made me feel so well I had to immortalize that feeling in a song.

We got back together, but would stay apart for a couple of months. She recorded a message for me on my phone, so I could listen to it when I was feeling lonely. I've spread bits and pieces of her message throughout the song, which made it even more special for me.

In the very ending (audio version only, not on the video, though), I’ve put most of the original vocal message, while the original raw recording of me writing some pieces in the acoustic guitar can be heard in the background.

I like music videos that mostly show the band playing, so when I shoot my videos I make sure to capture what I’d like to see. For this video I used a 720p camera, and Sony Vegas for the editing. I don’t know much about video editing, so I just try to have fun as I learn a thing or two in the editing software.

I've been looking for you

I needed to know you were well

And I found I still cared

A future together… and a future apart