Sanctuary of Nevermore

There was one day in 2015 when I’ve witnessed two moments, within a matter of hours, at the same location, that caused me to write down these words: "good people in a rotten world".

I was frustrated with people. I witnessed some people being kind and others being despicable when presented with very similar situations.

As the years went by, whenever I ran into situations that triggered this sort of thoughts and feelings, I wrote down additional words to those notes. Thoughts such as "why is she being nice to him?", "why are you being nice to me? What do you want?". We are so desensitized that we immediately assume no good act comes for free.

I knew those notes I took would eventually become lyrics to one of my songs. This is it. The song finally came out in November of 2020.

Musically, the riff for the main verse ("humanity…"), which is also used as the clean intro to the song, was written maybe around 2010. The same goes for the bridge riff ("in return"). Those three parts always worked well together in my mind. They were written and played on a 6-string guitar (my black Ibanez seen on the video).

Around 2015, I was playing those riffs on my 7-string guitar (the white Schecter on the video), and started to write a heavy riff using the 7th string, which ended up becoming the chorus for the song ("in this world…"). A derivative riff came out of it, and became the rhythm played in the guitar solo mid-section. Still out of those two riffs I wrote the clean arpeggiated part played in the middle of the song.

I sat down to start record the song in April of 2020, wrote the actual lyrics and vocals a couple of months later, and finally finished it in November.

Humanity never fails to disappoint and disrespect

When reason fades, I won’t let go,

And when you least expect

evil has settled in

Mendaciously, I lead you through

my vicious path, but you can’t see

The common sense is buried deep

and when you think I’m near

I’m backstabbing you

I return to foist darkness upon you

Unkindness incites my control

In return, I reward all my blind sheep

With nothingness, you deserve, now be gone

In this world, I see the faces of those who turn away

The elected pawns are savoring the pain

Can this be the norm we all live in?

What kind of human leads the humankind?

Why do I doubt the acts of good intent?

Inexcusable is the lack of virtue and care

Their soul tainted by their misdeeds

The teardrop, frozen by our coldness

I started writing this song in 2012, finished arrangement, lyrics and vocals in 2014, and finally recorded and released it in 2018. During that time period, I had many homes.

This song is about my thoughts about what home is. Shortly after moving to the US almost two decades ago, whenever I was at the airport either entering or exiting the country, people would ask me "are you going to or coming from home?". I’d catch myself thinking, "is home where I was born and raised or to where I’ve migrated?".

In 2013, I’ve watched this great TED talk by Pico Iyer, "Where is Home?" and was glad to see I wasn’t alone having those thoughts. For a couple of years after that, I collected my own thoughts and turned them into the lyrics I wrote sometime in 2014.

The writing process started back in 2012 when I was messing around with a cheap acoustic guitar that could barely stay tuned. The melody stuck with me. Months later, I turned the acoustic part into a riff played on the electric guitar and other riffs derived from it. I connected the parts together and did a simple recording to save the ideas. Here’s a video of what that sounded like:

Here’s another video messing with another riff, playing my old friend’s rare Ibanez John Petrucci signature guitar:

After thinking of some vocal melodies for the song in 2014, I wrote lyrics and finished the song’s arrangement.

Home as I've known it

Through words unsaid

You must always return

Do they wait for you?

If I speak the language

If we look the same

If I was born here

Could I call it my home?

Can I feel at home

at a place, I don't own?

A residence, that is all

We live inside four walls

An address on the phone book

Houses get bought and sold

Your home travels with you

In your mind, your heart, your soul

But I try to find

A place where I'm not down

Home is that place where you're respected,

loved, and cared for

Regardless of what you have,

Of where you were born,

Of where you live

Could home be a state of mind?

Perception changes over time

The place where I can be myself

I can see myself

There is no place like home

Do you know where home is?

Do you know what is it?

Can you feel or see it?

Is it the place you go when you're no more?

The name I put on the mailbox

The pictures I hang on the wall

How well I'm known in the neighborhood

Is this the place where I belong?

'cause I cannot hide

What I feel from myself

Home is that place where you're respected,

loved, and cared for

Regardless of what you have,

Of where you were born,

Of where you live

Could home be a state of mind?

Perception changes over time

The place where I can be myself

I can see myself

There is no place like...

Home

Your home

My home

Do you talk like me?

Do you act like me?

If so, is this home?

Home

Your home

My own

Do you look like me?

Do you think like me?

If so, is this home?

In my life, I have been put aside

Now I want, I want that all left behind

My sorrows drowned in the past

My hopes are on the rise again

Through my eyes I know my heart has learned

Through my heart I feel my eyes have seen

In this place, this place I now stand

I think I may, I may have found my home

This song is about dealing with negative thoughts and situations. It's about being patient.

Most of my songs are built from some guitar riff I have. This song is an exception: I built it from lyrics.

As I was writing this blog post, I picked up a journal where I write down ideas. This journal offers "weekly challenges". To my surprise, the page I opened had the following challenge: "Today, when you feel a negative thought coming on, replace it with a positive one." Well, this is precisely how this song creation process started over a year ago!

At some point last year, I was feeling sad, with negative thoughts filling up my mind. It felt like a mountain of sorrow. But then, I thought of a how a constant small stream of water causes erosion. I ended up writing down this line: "May the stream of joy erode the mountain of sorrow".

A few months later, I either heard or read somewhere about the idea that when in darkness, we need to either create or reflect light.

Many meditation practitioners use the idea of the "blue sky" to find calm: it doesn't matter how dark the clouds are, the blue sky is always there.

Finally, earlier this year, I got really hooked on the show The Good Place. Towards the end of the show, one episode had one of characters say the following lines:

Last but not least, a few months ago (around May), I put together all of those thoughts and figured that they should go on an acoustic song, so I picked up my acoustic guitar and wrote the three main parts that have become the song.

While not keeping any specific musical influences in mind, I know I like classical guitar and some folk songs, so I guess that's what I was somehow channeling here. I'd love to have the violin parts played on a real violin one day!

The vocal melodies came up quite naturally once I had the guitar parts connected. I wanted to make sure the words were delivered clearly, because the message of the lyrics is the highlight of this song for me.

The waves will form,

crash, transform

The water rejoins the ocean

Two ways to spread light

Create, reflect

Be the candle or be the mirror

May the stream of joy erode the mountain of sorrow

May this gentle breeze take the dead leaves away

Grow resilient as the branch or strong as the trunk

Behold uniqueness, the ancient trees

The sun is always out when covered by the dark clouds

Life goes on through its course at its own steady pace

Dream

Pursue

Live

Inspire

May the stream of joy erode the mountain of sorrow

May this gentle breeze take the dead leaves away

Let the wind clear the old misty memories

Plant the seed, let the trees flourish once again

In this post I talk about the song Blindfold, the title track off Descent Into Madness’ 2012 EP.

The idea that people keep making rules and bending rules to their own self-interest, and the masses following those rules blindly, without challenging assumptions, always bugs me, much like the idea that people believe a "God-fearing man" is a good person. When a person is afraid of something or someone, does it mean the person is good? Not necessarily, I don’t think.

Some believe that everybody has a "mind's eye", but leaders gather their flock, and collectively puts on a blindfold on the group's mind's eye. But it goes down all the way to the individual, when a father forces his children to follow him by means of fear, instead of respect.

The song was written rather quickly, but it took the band a while to play it live, and even more so to record it. When we started playing it live, though, it immediately became the band’s favorite live tune.

Here’s one live execution of this song:

Here’s also a video of me writing the solo. I’ve changed it a bit when I finally recorded it, but most of it came out of this version:

The intro to this song is mainly the core notes of the first riff, played on a keyboard and using some weird sounds. The influence for that intro came to me from Angra’s song Winds of Destination.

There’s also one riff in Blindfold that many years after I wrote I sort of figured what could have inspired me: the intro riff on Arch Enemy’s Dead Eyes See No Future.

Other than those two things, I can’t really think of any specific musical influences that inspired the creation of this song.

In order to come up with the vocal lines, I recorded it my own way, and then we worked on figuring out who was going to sing what. Eventually the band decided the first verse should be a tread of lines between Alex and I. I ended up not doing the chorus backing vocals in the studio version (which I used to do live).

Preaching for the mass

Your attitude lies beyond comprehension

Teaching for the dumb mass

You lie, beyond comprehension

Making the rules, bending the rules

The Ivory Tower crumbles

One can only hope

For a better future without you

God-fearing man, synonymous with good man

Scared minds are easy to control

Father… inflicted fear, I'm your tyrant

Father… you are free will deprived

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where does it lead?

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where will I be?

God-fearing man, synonymous with good man

Scared minds are easy to control

Father… inflicted fear, I'm your tyrant

Father… you're free will denied

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where does it lead?

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where will I be

I, ambush, lie

Land of the free

I, ambush, lie

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where does it lead?

Blind collective mind's eye

Shielded from what's real

Led to a one-way road...

Where will I be?

Preaching for the mass

Your attitude lies beyond comprehension

Teaching for the dumb mass

You lie, beyond comprehension

Making the rules, bending the rules

The Ivory Tower crumbles

One can only hope

For a better future without you

After I’ve recorded a rough version of the song played on the acoustic guitar, I kept listening to it while driving around, and vocal melodies started shaping up in my mind. As some parts stuck to my brain, I recorded it on Evernote so I wouldn’t forget (and also so I could hear it to see if it was working). The recording shows the parts I had lyrics for, and also the parts where I didn’t have the words yet, but had a general idea as to what the melody lines should be (lots of mumbling there).

Next, I did a slightly better recording, done when I had more solid ideas for lyrics and vocals (but still, some mumbling here and there while I looked for the words I wanted)...

Do you even realize how special you are?

There are those moments when you have to deal with waiting anxiously for something, while also having to deal with things that seem unbearable; things that at some point you just need to leave it behind...

I was still feeling sad and alone, but also very tired. It was a situation that took a lot out of me and the ones close to me. I just couldn’t wait to get passed that point in my life and move on to better things.

This song was written back in early 2014, right after I finished Far Away. It came out of me sitting down with my acoustic guitar and playing whatever seemed to fit what I was a feeling.

Much like what happened with Far Away, I wrote To Leave It Behind heavily influenced by Blaze Bailey’s Russian Holiday EP. With this song, though, I wanted to keep it acoustic-only (different than with Far Away, where I thought it’d be only acoustic and ended up adding quite a bit more to it).

The lyrics came out naturally based on the precise thoughts and feelings I had at that specific moment of my life.

The vocals were sort of tricky for me. Singing in a song where it’s just my vocals and one acoustic guitar is sort of intimidating for me. I’m not that great of a singer, and what I had in mind was Blaze Bailey’s powerful, passionate vocals on this type of song, so how could I make this work?

I do believe the more songs I write and record, the better I’m getting at it, and while I’m sure a real singer would make this song sound a lot better, I’m quite happy with my results.

The video for this song has reminders for myself spread through it so that, while I wanted to get those things out of my system, I can still watch this and remember what I’ve been through and appreciate what I have now.

Cordoba Acoustic Guitar

MXL condenser mic

It is an agonizing waiting game

Time slows down to a crawl

As we linger for a letter to arrive

We have waited like this before

But still it hurts unlike other times

Even knowing this is coming to an end

It was all for the Greater Good

Thoughts have been blurred by the distance

By every mile, by every trip I had to go on

Look at us, see how far we have come

Find the flaws and leave it behind

Let the shadows dissipate

It is an agonizing waiting game

But it is always good to know

That you will be there when I arrive

We have waited like this before

But still it hurts unlike other times

Even knowing this is now about to end

I wrote about our future

We hoped we were going to be together

But knew we'd have to be apart

It is now time to break that spell

People deal with certain thoughts and emotions in very specific ways. In my case, I decided writing songs is a very good way for me to keep my sanity. I wrote Far Away while charged with feelings and thoughts that were constantly present in my life at a certain point.

This song was written in early 2014. At first it was only going to be an acoustic piece. The video below shows exactly how it was when I thought I was done writing it:

After recording one version like that and listening to it a couple of times, I started to hear some parts played on the electric guitar, as well as some orchestration. So I ended up adding some layers to the arrangement, drums, and a little melody on the guitars to lead me into the last section of the song.

All the parts played on the electric guitar were written totally based on what I wrote for on the classical guitar. I broke the chords down and split them up in ways to make it work with distortion. Some parts worked well with distortion, and the parts that didn’t I turned to the keyboards. That’s a technique I’ve learned watching John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline video so many years ago (excellent video, by the way). This is a short video of me playing a part once I figured how I wanted it to sound (I was very specific about playing it with upstrokes):

I also like how I ended up playing the main vocal line on the acoustic and electric guitar at the beginning of the song. I definitely didn’t think about doing that as I wrote the song originally.

I believe this song came out as a direct influence of Blaze Bailey’s Russian Holiday EP. I like that album so much, with mostly his vocals and an acoustic guitar. Blaze puts so much passion into singing those songs that I felt really inspired to write something like that. Of course, it’s obvious I can’t sing like him, but I’m still happy with the results. To quote Willian Hung, "I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all". 😃

My two most favorites off Blaze’s EP are the title track, Russian Holiday, and One More Step (this one I always listen to when I need an extra push to go on with my day. Wonderful song for me).

The drums for this song are simple, but for me it was interesting finding something that worked in the 6/4 signature, and then turns into 4/4 (I think that’s it… I’m one of those musicians who write music but don’t know what they’re actually doing).

The bass lines were written borrowing melodies off the vocals and the main pieces I wrote on the acoustic guitar.

This song didn’t really ask for guitar solos. I only wrote a little melody over the transition into the final section of the song because I really heard something like that for the part.

The lyrics for this song are a representation of what I was going through at that moment. This is something I really started practicing in the last few years: whenever there are thoughts that keep coming back, that keep bothering me, I take them out of my head and turn them into lyrics.

It seems to help me recognizing the thoughts, getting them out of my mind, and turning them into music. Whenever I listen to the song, I remember how those thoughts affected me, what I was going through, and how I want to avoid it from happening again.

The vocals were written in the same way I normally do: I record a basic version of the song and listen to it over and over again, until I start hearing the melodies in my head. I keep humming to the song non-sense lyrics until certain melodies stick, and then I write the words, and fit them into the vocal lines. I like how it came out in this song, as it does represent my mood at the time.

So, everything in this song came out of the original pieces I wrote on the acoustic guitar. The vocal lines I came up with ended up also working out well for some of the pieces I played on the keyboards. I’ve created a mix with no vocals and no instruments other than the keyboards, and I think it sounds good. One day maybe I can get an orchestra to play it. 😃 You can listen to this mix below...

This song is about how hard it is to be far away from somebody you love. The technology today enables us to stay in touch and feel like we’re so close, but yet, we’re so far away. This song is also about my reflections upon going from not caring if I was alone to really feeling the weight of being in solitude.

I was feeling sad and lonely. I was reflecting upon my life, the choices I’ve made, and as I mentioned above, I had to get those thoughts and feelings out of my system. I think the song came out in a way that it sounds pretty much the way I was feeling at the time.

Much like the lyrics and the instrumental represent well what my mood was as the song was being written, the video adds images to the words.

Schecter Guitar

Cordoba Acoustic Guitar

BC Rich Bass

Roland VDrum

iRig Keyboard

MXL condenser mic

FastPro audio interface

Mixcraft

Sony Vegas

iPhone camera

Words can barely describe the torments of loneliness

And I've once valued being here all by myself

What a waste of life have I been through?

Notes and words, bouncing off me

It resonates around me, illustrating my moments of solitude

No, I need peace of mind, in times of desperation

Don't leave again, we should always stay side by side

In the best times of my life, I had you there by my side

And now I can only think it's so hard to let you go

Why must we cry for the morning that has not come

We can't deny the feeling that surrounds us

I've been sitting here alone

Watching you

So close and yet so far away, so far away

Don't leave again, we should always stay side by side

In the best times of my life, I had you there by my side

And now I can only think, it's so hard to let you go

I'm sitting here alone

Watching you

So close and yet so far away, so far away

As a longtime time fan of the likes of Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, etc, I’ve always wanted to write an instrumental song, but never actually got around to it. Until sometime back in 2010...

I started writing this song, Reconnect, back in 2010. The first thing that came out was the main guitar melody. All other parts came out of that. Fast forward to July, 2013, I finally had the time and everything I needed to finish arranging the song and record it.

When I wrote the melody I didn’t think at all what the rhythm guitar would sound like. When finally arranging the song, I started hearing in my head what the backing track music should sound like, and the song started to take shape.

The way I had it written, the melodies and parts were already chained together, so finishing the song’s arrangement was mostly a matter of figuring out what other pieces I may wanted to add to it. Once it was clear what the song was about, then it was clear what the missing pieces were: guest guitar leads by some longtime friends of mine.

While all the main parts were written based on the melody first, the part that starts at 2’30" was the other way around; I wrote the rhythm part and really liked the progression, and as I was arranging the song, I came up with the lick that goes over that part, and I thought it worked out as the perfect link between Andre’s solo, mine, and Milton’s.

The last section of the song I decided to start on the keyboard, and then transition into all instruments (with the riff as originally written). The idea of that part was to have this cyclical feel to it, giving the meaning of "what goes around, comes around", which sums up the overall meaning of this song.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve always been a fan of instrumental artists. While I didn’t have any of them in mind as I was writing this song, I knew I wanted something that had a catchy hook melody (similar to my favorite Satriani tunes), and maybe one or two shredding solos (similar to Malmsteen).

The drums parts came out of what I heard in my head as I listened to the guitar tracks. When I sat behind the drums I just started playing it the way I was feeling it, and it came together real quick.

I think the trickiest parts were the ones where I had to keep the double kicks going for several measures (since my drum skills aren’t there yet), and the final section, with its specific time signature, which took me a few attempts to find something I liked.

Overall, I think this is my best drum work so far.

The bass lines either followed the guitar melodies or the rhythms. I know that bass playing is still my weakest, because I’m still not getting in a bass player mindset, so I still approach it as a guitarist.

After arranging the entire song, I made sure to have spots for solos for myself and both my friends Andre and Milton. I’ve sent them an raw mix, told them where they should put a solo on, and let them go at it. They wrote their leads, recorded, and send it over to me.

Andre was my guitar partner at my main teenage band back then. It had been almost 20 years since the last time we had recorded something together! He was the one helped me take my guitar skill up to the next level all those years ago. When he sent me his solo, I really felt like harmonizing it so we could be seeing playing the same part together on the video. Blast from the past!

My friendship with Milton also goes back 20 years, and we've shared lots of musical inspirations and recording tips over the years. We’ve always talked about collaborating on some song together, but actually done it, so this time I just had to make it happen. Having him lay a solo on this special track was great!

My solo in between the two: it was meant to be a musical connection between these two good friends of mine.

Wait, it’s an instrumental song, isn’t it?

Glad you asked. Yes, it is an instrumental song, but I wanted to drop in some spoken words in the middle of the song in order to add to the meaning of this track. I knew the song should be called Reconnect, so I looked up the definition of the word, and that’s what I used in the song.

Yes, I know, there’s nobody singing here. But again, I needed some spoken words, so there you go.

My original thought was to have my wife say the words, since she was the main sparkle for this song to be written. But she doesn’t feel comfortable with speaking English (yet…), so I ended up doing it myself.

I thought it’d be a good idea to play an intro to the song on the keyboards, based on the main guitar melody.

As mentioned earlier, I also like the keyboard part that works as a transition into the last section of the song. That one was little trickier for me, since keyboard playing is also not my forte at the moment.

The song is about reconnecting with people who are important in my life, as well as emotions that I had somehow buried inside of me. Both people and emotions tend to come and go. Sometimes you end up not seeing somebody you really like for a long, long time (for a variety of reasons), and when you get together again, it is as if nothing has changed… it just feels right. The connection is there.

I had just reconnected with somebody really important in my life. Somebody I hadn’t seen in years. At the first chance sitting alone by myself, I picked up my guitar and started playing whatever came to mind (and hands). Pretty much the entire song was written at that moment.

The video of this song, as it’s always the case in my videos, shows me playing the instruments and singing (because that’s my favorite type of music video, where I get to see the band playing). Also following my style, I add several things that only myself and a couple of close people may understand the meaning.

Spread through the video, there are little inserts showing me, sitting by myself, writing the song (I like capturing songwriting in video, as it makes it easier for me to relearn what I wrote).

Milton’s playing was recorded by himself and sent over to me, whereas Andre’s I’ve captured over a Skype call.

I really need to point out how great it was to have Andre also giving me some recording and production tips. I’m really no sound engineer, and I just know the bare minimum: I plug stuff in, and hit the red button.

Andre heard a couple of raw mixes, and gave me some simple, valuable tips on how I could improve the sound of my recording, and I believe the final result shows a lot of improvements when compared to my previous recordings.

Reconnect: Re-establish a bond of communication or emotion...

Perpetual Mark is a song created with parts written at different times in my life. The arpeggiated clean part played on the acoustic guitar at the end of the song was written sometime back in 94. When I revisited that part in 2013, I thought of turning its melody into something I could play on the electric guitar, and that’s what we hear in the song intro.

The heavy slow part in the first section of the song was written back in 2008, and it gives the idea of what I was feeling at the time; I was depressed, hence the lyrics in that part ("how I wish mistakes could be undone…"). My life was dragging, and that riff gives me that feel.

The part that follows was written on that same day. It is a little faster paced, and I played it on the guitar feeling like "I have to keep going!". The lyrics were written four years later matched the original intention: "if we are to follow what we feel, who’s to blame us?...".

The chorus and remaining parts of the song were written in 2013, when I finally sat down to arrange the song. The parts were built on top of the main chord progression written for the "slow heavy" section; I worked so I’d have a section for a "calmer" guitar solo, then a chorus, into which I’ve added a simple guitar lick on top of it, and then I sped up the part, turned the guitar lick into a keyboard lick, and then added a faster guitar solo.

Some friends heard the song and said that the slow section sounded somewhat like Candlemass; I certainly like the reference, even though I wasn’t thinking about it during writing. I can’t really thinking of having any specific musical influence when I was writing this song on the guitar.

As I started playing drums to a backing track, I guess I wanted the slow heavy part on the first section to have simple heavy drums, maybe reminiscent of some of the work Bill Ward did on Black Sabbath. For the other sections, I just tried to throw in some simple double-bass patterns, fitting what I could play at the time.

The bass lines were written to follow the main guitar lines. One of these days, I need to work on improving my bass playing!

Once the arrangement for the song was done, I figured I wanted two guitar solos: one on a slow part and one of a fast part. Following the way I normally write solos, I jammed to the backing track until I had some lines that stuck around. At some point, I was consistently playing some lines over and over, and had a general direction I wanted for the other pieces, so it was time to record it!

When recording, I did not want to go through the same hassle I did with Looking For You (having to relearn the recorded solo, which I had mostly improvised, then shoot the video, and finally syncing it up with the recording). This time around, I shot the video as I was recording, which I did in three takes: one take for each solo section.

I'm happy with how the leads came out: it has some catchy lines, and a good melody that closes both lead sections.

The lyrics were all written in 2013, shortly after the arrangement for the song was done, and they encompass both what I was feeling when I wrote parts of the song in 2008, as well as when I wrote the remaining parts in 2013.

The recurring idea that I can’t undo mistakes always comes to my mind, along with the sometimes dreaded feeling that those mistakes will follow me for life. Fortunately, there are also good things that’ll come along and stick around. As I go about learning from my own experiences, I’m always trying hard to filter what I bring back from the past, often whether I should I get the blame for doing things I believe to be right.

I had some lyrics by the time I started writing vocals for this song, but not enough for the whole thing. For the parts I had lyrics for, I just tried to find melodies for the words I had, whereas for the parts I didn’t have anything I just mumbled sounds until I found the melodies, and then I tried to find the words that fit the melody in a way that also made sense with the overall meaning of the song.

For the record, when I’m working on writing vocals for a song, I listen to the backing track a lot as I drive, and then I start to sing incomprehensible words, looking for the right sounds. That’s got sound weird/funny to the people I drive by. By the way, the video for this song shows some scenes of me singing as I drive around.

Most keyboard parts were put in place in order to add some atmosphere to the slower sections of the song. When the song changes to a faster beat, I was planning on keeping the guitar lick that’s played throughout the choruses, but decided to beef up the lick by playing it on the keyboard as well, and thought that worked much better.

Things, experiences, people… they come into our life and put a permanent mark on it. Wrongs and rights that make what we are. How great would it be If we could selectively erase some of those from our lives, keeping around only what makes us feel good?

As I mentioned before, when I was writing the heavy slow sections of the song, I was feeling depressed, sad about how my life was at that point, back in 2008. When writing the remaining parts, my life had gotten sort of back on track, and I think that comes through in how they all sound.

In the first half of the song, one can hear some spoken words in what may sound like an odd language to you; that is my wife repeating the words I’m singing, but in Portuguese (that can also be seen in the video).

The video starts off with a photo from a Beach. I took that photo when I was in Barra Grande, Bahia (Brazil) back in December, 2011. Sitting at that place for a couple of days has helped me clear up my thoughts and figure out what I needed to do with my life.

The video then goes on with me playing through the song, recording all the different parts. Occasionally we see some more footage of my personal videos; suffice it to say that each one of those pieces have a special meaning for me.

There are also some shots that show me driving around and singing. Like I said before, that’s usually how most of my vocal lines are create.

A final note about the video: did you notice the pop filter facing the wrong way? That has happened only when I was shooting the video: it was positioned properly when I actually recorded vocals. :)

Roland VDrum

iRig Keyboard

Living ghosts that will haunt us for life

Can we choose what we bring back?

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