We made a song (well, a cover)! My barber/pal Emily did the signing 🎤 and I did the rest. 🎸 Recorded as CRIMELESS just for fun. The original is by @sirchloe ! #music #song #cover #firstsong #milestone #austin #texas #atx #justforfun via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CycCHGuu0kh/
It took us a few months, but my barber Emily and I made a real song, and now it’s out on all the streaming services!
After picking a song tother, I recorded the initial backing track at an AirBnb in Miami. Then came recording her initial vocals at my house, her adding more vocals on her iPhone in her car, a spreadsheet picking the best vocal parts from 14 takes, figuring out when (and when not) to use left-and-right vocal tracks, and most of all, learning when to call it done.
At Emily’s wise insistence, our first song is a cover (let’s start slowly), of Sir Chloe’s song Animal. This is our first toe in the water of making music, published as the band CRIMELESS.
Here is Sir Chloe’s original version.
And finally, there was also the metronome, aka “metro gnome”, that came up in a late night chat.
God now I gotta find a fuckin garden gnome and paint it as the GNOME OF TIME
Or… a well-dressed, sexually ambiguous gnome.
Our expectations are grounded; this is just a hobby. We are not expecting to get rich off of this, or even make a dime. We just wanted to see what we can do musically and make something real happen. ✅
With our cover of Sir Chloe’s song Animal in the bag, it’s time to make it official. Cover rights are being secured (thanks to DistroKid) , and then it’s headed to streaming services worldwide.
Did you really think we’d just say, “Oh that’s cool, we did a cover.” and that would be the end of it? Nah, we want you to be able to just casually look us up on Spotify, Apple Music. We want you to be able to play this song using Siri.
We’re releasing Animal under the band name CRIMELESS.
Picking a band name was a fun but involved process. We came up with 90 good band name ideas (still under secret file), eventually narrowed it down to three finalists that we both liked, and then I told Emily, “If you have a fav of these, I’m down with it!” She liked Crimeless, adding:
Ok do all caps. SO ITS IN YOUR FACE. LOLOL
Go big or go home. 💪
At last, my friend Emily and I have finished our first song! It’s our take on the Sir Chloe song Animal.
The total process took about three months from “Hey, let’s record a song! How about this one…?” to this final version.
I love Emily’s personal style and improvisations on the vocals. I’m hearing a hint of Gwen Stephanie and some Christina Aguilera. For the instrumentation, I was going for a slightly more mysterious guitar and drum sound than the Sir Chloe original.
Next up: take a breather, post this song somewhere more official, and then hopefully tackle another song? 🤷🏻♂️ Maybe an original?
My friend Emily and I resolved to try recording some music together. I want to hone my skills at recording songs in GarageBand, and she wants to get into singing.
Instead of jumping right into an original song (writing songs is a whole other creative skill) Emily suggested we start with a cover. I tossed out a few ideas by Angel Olsen, Mazzy Star, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but she knew her own style.
Of the songs she suggested, I picked Animal by Sir Chloe because it was pretty short and simple.
Then I recorded a simple guitar and drum track for her to sing to. We tried collaborating remotely with GarageBand for iPhones, but it was too hard so we held a recording session in person on my MacBook with a decent mic. And I made some edits a few days later.
I added some electronic drums; they might sound odd at first but it gives a little intro and helps keep the song moving IMHO. Let me know if you don’t like them; I can easily change/remove/reduce them.
So here it is: our first shot at Animal! This isn’t the final version, but more of a proof of concept, like “Hey, we can do this.” I even left in her very first “practice” vocal take for fun 😬 and re-did the drums etc. a few days later on my own.
And for reference, a screenshot of the GarageBand project.
Mental Break Town 