The name ’Abbey Road’ conjures up a mythology: The Beatles, the zebra crossing, and a host of albums and artists. In reality, if it weren’t for the Beatles-related graffiti and the tourists having their photos taken holding up the London traffic, there would be little to indicate a landmark of such musical importance.
Stepping inside, even for the most casual music fan, could be quite an event. But today even more so because we are guests of Bellowhead as they are hard at work on their third album, Hedonism.
The band is cocooned in booths facing each other in the iconic Studio 2. It is where The Beatles recorded the vast majority of their output while they used the even bigger Studio 1 (where today the Shrek 4 soundtrack is being finished off) for their orchestral work. The band take up half the studio, with their instrument cases filling much of the other half.
As we enter the dimly lit and impressively large studio, the air rings with Brendan Kelly’s deep saxophone, twanging from Benji Kirkpatrick’s electric bouzouki and rattles and clanks from Pete Flood’s drum kit.
Jon Boden sits in the vocal booth playing a musical saw, whilst John Spiers sports his claviola, a bizarre wind instrument.
Some members are going over their parts for the next track to be laid down, whilst others sup from Abbey Road mugs. It may be 3.30pm, but the bands are still quite early into their working day, recording from 11am-11pm for the week.
The band are in good spirits, with the recording going well to time. They have laid down nearly all of the fourteen tracks from which the ten or eleven that make up the final album will be chosen.
Helicon player and long time Bellow-dep Ed Neuhauser has taken up the bass brass reins for this album. Coming from a predominantly classical background, Bellowhead is a totally new experience for the Yorkshireman and one that he gets a genuine buzz from. A serendipitously timed text from Ed to previous player Gideon Juckes has seen him rise from stand-in of choice to the full-time band member.
Up in the control room, producer John Leckie sits at the eye of the storm, a sea of calm surrounded by a bewildering complexity of technology and sounds. His years of experience with band such as Stone Roses, XTC and Simple Minds show through as he works the vast blinking sound board. Sometimes he turns some channels right down to focus in on particular instruments. The band strike up to perform a practice take of a song and we listen through the fantastic speakers of the booth.
I’ve never heard the band sound so bright on record, surely a good sign. The aim is to record the album as live as possible, and from what we heard it seems to be paying off.
We leave the control room as Bellowhead prepare to lay down a track, catching up with them later for a bit of a chat. Abbey Road is a top notch studio, and we can’t wait to hear the album that emerges from it.
Hedonism is released on 4 October 2010 by Navigator Records.
Text by Liz Osman, photos by Alan Cole.
Check back on 14 June 2010 for part two of our Bellowhead Hedonism special.
