Lockdown has been an exciting time in some ways as its given me the chance to collaborate with some amazing people and expand my ideas into new projects.
StoneRain
StoneRain is a collaboration between myself and ex Havoc band member Steve Cowan. Steve and I were in Havoc when I lived in Lincoln in the 1990’s. The other two members of the band were Steves partner Anna-Marie and good friend Gena Chapman (Crawford at the time). Sadly Gena died of cancer fairly suddenly in 2019 and Steve and I started working on a project to create songs from a large numnber of Gena’s poem that she had left with me many years ago. This project is still ongoing as we would like to involve some of Gena’s friends and Greg, her hsuband in the creation of a CD in memory of Gena.
Out of this came the desire for Steve and I to work together again and StoneRain was born. From Steve sending me a bunch of riff ideas I added a chird structure and some lyrics and batted it back to Steve who created some amazing structure and backing behind it. Together (over JamKazam) we fine tuned the work and we are nearing completion of an EP sometime very soon.
For now you can buy our single ‘Find Another Way’ or just have a listen at Steves Bandcamp page:
https://haneworderecords.bandcamp.com/track/find-another-way
The Peony Blacks
The Peony Blacks started after good friend, Bex Hopley whom I met through the Bad Pollyanna fan group ‘The Black Unicorns’ wrote a beautiful poem after she lost a very dear friend. The poem ‘Hollow Me’ became a song when Bex asked for someone to set it to music. She liked the music I set to it and we released our first single.
We carried on and worked on another song called 20to1, a song Bex penned through her feelings over lockdown while trying to shield herself and her Mum. I found the words so very powerful. For this song Bex created some guitar and piano riffs and sent them to me and I arranged them into the final song.
You can have a listen to them below:
Bexie James
Bexie is another good friend I met through both ‘The Sing Gym’ and ‘The Black Unicorns’. I loved Bexies voice so much that I asked her to record her singing one of my favourite songs ‘Scream’ that I wrote after attending a song writing workshop with Olivia Hyde. There will be some new music with Bexie singing released very soon, watch this space !