Six String

Released : March 2005

 

Personnel

Peter Nuttall - Music/Lyrics/Vocals
Douglas Hunter - Lyrics

What an album this was.  I read John Taylor's autobiography and in it he was all like 'Rio is a great album' and I thought, yeah - it's not arrogant, it's true! If you think something is good, say it. If something is bad, say it.  After years of terrible production, lack of recording ability and some wishy washy ideas, we finally managed to pull together a collection of songs that had it all.  We were still a couple of years away from releasing it to the public in a slightly different form but this was what we'd been striving for - our own 'Songs from the Big Chair' so to speak. A timeless collection of songs which we were absolutely proud of.

The writing and recording process was a joy.  We'd started rehearsing together as a three-piece, really playing together properly for the first time in a while.  We'd play 'Poison Moon' and 'Selling and Souls' as well as writing some new stuff.  The dynamic is there to hear on this album.

'A.K.A.' was the first song written for the album and it was originally conceived as an 'Anastacia' song. I was really into her music at the time and saw a moment (in my mind) where I presented this song to her record company and she recorded it... I even tweeted her with this song a few years ago but I guess she doesn't pick songs that way!  My voice doesn't do this gem any justice but it's a great song and she'd knock this right out of the park.  It's mostly a song about a three-way tug of war between what's right, what you want and what's definitely not in any way right at all but you want more than the other two.  I'm saying to the 'what's right' - 'Take me, make me love. Hold me, tell me secrets. Make me take you now. Push me, throw me over.'  

'Feel' was fun to write.  I'd been looking for odd chords I couldn't play (I had no idea what chords I was playing either) and tried putting them in an order that didn't sound right.  This came out.  The rhythm of the song pushes the narrative along nicely too.  Yeah, I'm a big fan of this.

'Love of my life' was nice and simple.  Happy. Positive. Upbeat. Drenched in 80s splendour.  

Those were all my songs but I had a few ideas knocking about without lyrics so I dug into the treasure trove that was the ever increasing pile of Lyrics Doug was supplying and pulled out 'If I knew then'.  A gorgeously sentimental and regret fuelled lyric that had to be used in a melancholy bath of strings and synths.  This is definitely one of our classics and would be a staple in our live show if we were still doing them.

'Is it me' was something that came from the 'Feel' songwriting session.  It's quite similar but branched off in a different direction. 

I absolutely love 'Keep in Touch'.  Looking in the mirror and telling your younger self to keep in touch with your older self. A 27 year-old Doug writing way beyond his years there.  The vocal performance leaves a lot to be desired as it's out of my range but you get the idea.

'Loud' is a personal favourite.  I wrote it on a beach - it was October 3rd 2004, I had a pen and paper with me and it was a warm day. A strangely warm day.  I wrote the lyrics sitting staring out to sea and when I got home, wrote the music and recorded it all on the same day.

I remember writing 'Tomorrow is so far away' so vividly. Like it came through me from somewhere else.  I just played it and sang it and recorded it. There seemed to be no effort involved at all - I guess that's what a muse is.  As you'll see in a couple of albums time, I'm so embarrassed by the songs on there, I'm not putting any up to stream and listen to.  And if you've heard the quality of the stuff on the early albums, that shows you just how embarrassing they are.  This however, was so simple to write and such a good song.  A reviewer called it 'like an out-take from the Joshua Tree'.  Well, that's the best compliment you could ever have.

'Where has the fire gone' is like 'Tomorrow is...''s twin.  They were written quite close together although since it was written, I've realised that the intro is almost exactly the same as 'If it makes you happy' by Sheryl Crow.  

About 50% of this album and 50% of the next one were merged and sold online as 'Six String' and we shifted some copies.  7Digital had it, Overplay had it - a few others too.  Amazon and Spotify were the game changers though and they wouldn't come along until about five years later.  Still, we were on our way to producing something that could quite happily sit alongside the other amateur releases of the day.

- Peter