As Dan and I were recording the other day, the discussion turned to which genres we haven’t covered yet. One of the most prominent which hasn’t yet been ticked off is reggae, and we set about trying to recreate the feel and style of such music while still sounding like The Home Guard. We thought you’d like a snippet of what we came up with:
http://www.thehomeguard.info/demos/reggae_beat_demo.mp3
There’s no off-beat chord, but by placing the kick drum in a funny place and making sure the bass guitar misses it almost every time, we think that this suggests reggae quite well. There’s a long way to go, but we’d still love to hear what you think.
Incidentally, the lead instrument that Dan’s playing is a (slightly wonky-sounding) mandolin, which if it makes the final cut will herald the debut of yet another new element on the next album.
According to Sussilo’s month-long survey, your favourite Home Guard songs from their respective albums are The City That Never Wakes and Sweating Blood.
As far as A Head of Steam goes, The City That Never Wakes took 43% of the votes, with Walking Against the Wind finishing clear in second place on 21%. Regarding Forlorn Hope and Glory, Sweating Blood‘s victory came thanks to 48% choosing it; Nothing Can Stop You Being Mine put in a good show to take second place with 20%.
We have to admit to being fascinated but also rather surprised by the outcome of this survey. They do say that you rarely see yourself how others see you! We’ve never pushed The City That Never Wakes as a potential “single” (despite numerous entreaties from one fan in particular), while Nothing Can Stop You Being Mine failed to make the cut for our MySpace page. But therein lies the lesson: our best songs aren’t necessarily our most commercial ones, and this fact comes to the fore when our real fans vote. (Champagne Socialist – by a million miles the most “pop” we’ve ever been – only picking up two nods is testimony to this.)
We’d like to thank Susanne once more for setting up this nice surprise for us, and also all of you who voted. You’ve certainly opened our eyes!
Full results of the survey can be seen here:
http://sigpoll.com/Which-sond-do-you-like-most-on-A-Head-Of-Steam-p21172-v6.html
http://sigpoll.com/Which-song-do-you-like-most-on-Forlorn-Hope-and-Glory-p21203.html