Eddy Says

Eddy Says: The making of Beautiful Losers

By | Published on Wednesday 8 September 2010

Losers

The time has almost come, folks. Next Monday sees the release of ‘Beautiful Losers’, the debut album by Losers – aka Tom Bellamy and a certain Eddy Temple-Morris. It’s been a long time coming and I can assure you it is absolutely worth the wait.
The album will be officially launched at Club Remix this Thursday (9 Sep), held in London’s Proud venue in Camden. Amongst other special additions to the usual pretty darn special Losers set, MCs Riz and Envy will be on hand to perform ‘Flush’ together live for the first time. And because we like you, we’ve set up a special concessions list, which will get you in for £4 (instead of the usual £7). Hit Eddy up on Facebook or Twitter to get your name added.
But ahead of that, here is, as Eddy puts it, “a blow by blow, chord by chord, inside story account of the making of ‘Beautiful Losers'”.

Three Colours
This was written when we were quite far down the line. We wanted an album opener, and I had a very strong idea that I wanted it to start gently, with a nice string arrangement – this was inspired by a Killing Joke track I was listening to at the time, from their ‘best of’. I fused the idea with a chord progression inspired by The Cocteau Twins, and Tom put the Wales rugby massive singing ‘Land Of Our Fathers’ because were both patriotic Welsh rugby fans.

The half beat at the top was not a hint at dubstep, we didn’t want any nods to anything cool or current, because we wanted the record to sound classic and timeless. The beat was inspired more by Underworld’s ‘Pearl’s Girl’ and we wrote the words together, with an uplifting dancefloor moment in mind.

No Man Is An Island
This started out life as one of Tom’s ideas, which I helped tweak and played bass on. The words in the verse came from a kind of poem I’d been working on, which name-checked loads of ‘Losers’, being our favourite underdogs and unsung heroes. Tom said he really wanted to put the phrase ‘no man is an island’ in somewhere, it really resonated with him, so the chorus beckoned here.

This was our first release – as a free download – and was championed by Xfm’s John Kennedy without a word from me.

Nothing Will Die
This started as one of mine, it was an idea to make a Soulwax type tune sound as if Jagz Kooner made it. The working title was ‘Jagzy’ for some time. Then ‘Joseph’, as the track took shape and Tom found these amazing lyrics that Joseph Merrick – The Elephant Man – used in his freakshow intro back in Victorian times. Tom came up with the melody and the gorgeous intro, then it all came together beautifully.

Flush
This was one of Tom’s instrumental tracks, I just helped rearrange it, then came up with the vocalists for it. Riz, whom I met in New York when I went to interview Justice, did the track first, but both Tom and I found his vocal too misogynistic, so inspired by Dan and Pip’s tune ‘Angles’, I suggested a female MC to have a right of reply.

Envy was, at that time, really new, with one single out, but she stood out head and shoulders above the pack for me. So, I got in touch and asked if she’d put in a reply to Riz’s girl diss. She was game, and put in the most ferocious vocal. Respect to both Riz and Envy for this.

Never Meant To Be
This was one of the first tracks we worked on together. I really wanted a dancefloor banger but with beautiful layers of guitar. Tom has this pedal board, from his Cooper Temple Clause days, with every guitar effect under the sun on there. He tinkered with it a bit and came up with this sound, which we layered up together. I think we both played guitar on this. Layer upon layer of slide guitar – the working title was ‘Slider’ because of this.

This tune kind of embodies our sound. I played it as a demo at an SeOne Remix All-nighter all those years ago, and it worked a treat. I think it was the track that made Matt from Gung Ho! fall in love with the whole album.

We re-voiced the ‘Wayne’s World’ samples, largely thanks to voiceover king Adam Longworth. And I still love the way Tom left out every fourth kick drum at the start.

Azan
This one came about when it occurred to me that, at that point, every track we’d written was a banging, uptempo number and that to make it work as an album, rather than a collection of bangers, we’d need a break. So, I came up with the concept of a Massive Attack-style track and asked Tom if he had some sexy strings available for this four part string riff I had.

As the song developed, Tom took it in an ‘eastern’ direction; ‘Mezzanine’ by Massive Attack is one of his favourite albums, and mine, so this was most welcome. When it started taking shape it started to remind me of when I visited Istanbul, now my favourite city, and those incredible moments when a muezzin calls everyone to prayer. I tapped ‘call to prayer Istanbul’ into Google and came up with someone’s holiday video recording of the very call to prayer I was thinking of.

Brilliantly, this was exactly in tune with our track! We ripped it and I asked Tom to do what Adam Freeland did to that guitar on ‘Burn The Clock’ – my favourite Freeland track. Tom nipped bits out of the vocal and we ended up with this. Tom added the incredible horn and Arabic instrumental parts, and the track built up and up. UNKLE-inspired drums and one huge crescendo later we had both our favourite track on the album.

Sirenna (Today We See Colour)
I wanted one track on the album to have a shot at getting on a Ministry Of Sound compilation, one of those Ibiza type ones, so this was written with that in mind. The bass line came from an old song in a band I used to be in and the track itself was inspired mostly by the electro coolness of Kris Menace and Alain Braxe, but with the melodic vibe of Robert Miles.

It stayed as an instrumental for the longest time, until Tom came up with his vocal. Tom instinctively knew what to do, and where not to sing, and I think what he did here is astonishing. It reminds me of Simple Minds, the middle eight of ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ – one of the most uplifting 80s tunes – and ended up as our second single on the strength of Tom’s vocal.

Katana
The working title of this was ‘Growler’. I wanted a track that just built and built with a growly, waspy synth at its heart. Tom came up with this exquisite rhythm track and by the time we’d worked the crescendo up, we had one of our most popular live tracks.

Katana means ‘sword’ in Japanese and was inspired by the TV show, ‘Heroes’ which Tommy and I were obsessed with at the time. Thanks to our friends Tomiko in Tokyo and Hiroshi in London for helping us revoice the samples. This has been a live staple for us.

Talk To The Hand
This was actually the first track we started working on. It was based on a couple of samples of big 80s bands that we fucked up so much not even they themselves would recognise them. It was the most problematic, arrangement wise, and neither of us liked the first vocal we got from the brilliant Pablo Decoder, but he gave us two or three different ideas later, which we cut up and rearranged into what you hear now.

Tom and I locked horns over the slap bass. I hadn’t slapped since the 1980s. Tom didn’t want any, anywhere near the album. I’d put a slap line on ‘Never Meant To Be’, but Tom removed it when I went home! This one survived and I’m glad it did, because it rocks live.

Summertime Rolls
I’m a massive Jane’s Addiction fan, and Perry Farrell, their lead singer, loves his electronic music. I always wanted to cover this electronically, and knew that it would be the last track on the album, so that, in a sense, the album would sonically follow a dynamic ‘M’ shape and leave you with this.

My biggest surprise was that Jane’s Addiction never figured on Tom’s radar. I’d had the Cooper Temple Clause down as big Jane’s fans because, in some ways, they were the UK’s answer to them. Progressive. Stand-alone. Doing their thing and ignoring fickle-fashion or trends.

I played bass on this and Tom came up with the amazing guitar-like sounds on his laptop, and maybe using one of the array of synths in his collection.

When we finished, we thought about vocals and considered sending it to Perry to revoice it. I had a connection through the Hybrid boys, who’ve worked with him closely. But we kinda wanted it to be more ‘ours’ and felt a UK vocalist would be better. That left us with two choices, who we felt could do Perry’s vocal justice. Brian Molko of Placebo, who I knew, and Robert Harvey of The Music, who my friend Danny McNamara knew.

We first felt that Brian would overshadow us, so prepared to contact Robert, but we then switched sides, I think, because were both such huge Placebo fans and really relished the chance to work with Brian. But it was only a snowballs chance in hell, Brian was a busy man. I texted him and he replied that he knew and loved that song, but couldn’t make any promises. I sent the track, and within 24 hours had a hilarious message back saying: “I love it. I’m doing it. I won’t let you use anybody else on this, I’m free on ONE DAY this year, and I’m coming to your studio”.

He did. With a cold. But it was now or never. Brian had this incredible tea called ‘Throat Coat’, or something, an American, medicinal brew containing ‘slippery elm bark’. I tasted some and it was like magic! It literally coats the back of your throat in this yummy, slippery stuff, so you don’t get that horrid scratchy feeling from a sore throat. Brian said it’s the ‘singers’ best kept secret’. That combined with the brandy he sent me off to buy -purely for medicinal purposes – in miniature bottles did the trick and Brian laid down, I think, one of his best ever vocals. We really stretched him and he rocked it like the true pro he is.

I don’t think Brian has ever recorded a vocal in such scummy conditions, in front of a multi-stained, upturned sofa, masquerading as an impromptu vocal booth in the Coopers control room. Now I look forward to the day he sings it live with us.

Love it, or hate it, I defy anyone to listen to it and be able to pinpoint when ‘Beautiful Losers’ was made. The truth is we started this record over three years ago and finished it over two years ago. The rest of the time was spent mastering, honing it live and finding a home for it. It’s not identifiable as a record made when almost every dance producer was busy ripping off Dave Switch or Josh Hervé. That’s what we aimed for and I’m delighted with the result.

As delighted as I was when Mixmag (who are normally so ambivalent about anything I’m involved with) made it Album Of The Month, and the editor of iDJ called me to say: “Sorry we always slagged you off, this is really brilliant. We totally get it now, and see this as one of the top five albums of the year thus far!”

That really was beyond my wildest dreams and I know Tom feels the same way. I hope you get to listen to it, as an album. Our timing is awful, as most young people don’t even register what an album is, other than a playlist on iTunes, but this really is AN ALBUM: A collection of songs specifically designed to be played in sequence as a journey from the strings of ‘Three Colours’ to the haunting chords and bass line of ‘Summertime Rolls’.

I hope there is something there which resonates with you, do let me know what you think, either way, any feedback is good feedback. Til then, I remain your faithful, friendly, Friday night speaker wobbler.

eddy x



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