Trusties

Ville:
This track was partly written during the arrangement and rehearsal sessions, so the whole band is credited, although majority of the material came from myself. It was a very rewarding although laborious process, that really helped define the sound of the band. Suiting the title of the song, there is lots of recycled material especially from the ‘Growing Smaller’ album. This doesn’t mean it is easy to identify those bits, however.

The limping riff, that provides the background for the verses, was the starting point for the song. The nick name for the song is ‘Bouncy’ or ‘Pomppiva poni’ (galloping pony) as a result of the bouncy ride it gives to the listener. As often happens, first I got the idea of the rhythm, then added the notes with piano, and finally Marko played it on guitar for the record. Later I realized that the riff resembles my older riff on the ‘His Blue Sky’ track. This association helped me create the melody line and chords for the intro and outro. The melody was first sang on top of the limping riff, but was later replaced with Janne’s and Marko’s idea of the thrash-metal accompaniment. Other than that, it was Matti who mainly provided the vocal melodies and most of the lyrics too.

Years ago I wrote quite a massive instrumental collage out of the material of the GS album, made a demo out of it, and then accidently destroyed it without any back-up. So I decided to forget all about it, but apparently coudn’t wipe it out entirely from my mind, as part of the material, although highly modified, ended up as the basis for the instrumental fusion-laden middle section. These themes can be heard in the Human Wheel track too.

Marko suggested the variation to the guitar melody, which was played right after the verses. The variation resulted in the melancholic and bluesy middle part. It was Suti who suggested the chords for the part, and he also provided inspiration for many harmonic ideas elsewhere.

Finally there’s a reference to the first tracks of the WJWTRTW album right after the bluesy part. Reinvention… reinvention … reinvention…

Oikku:
I remember when we were playing the song in rehearsals and we only had the A and B sections down. At one point when the music stopped I started playing the B-theme in a slower tempo just for laughs, “Die-daa-dat-daa-daaaa…” milking every note and imagining a tango-rhythm under it. Instead of tango, guys started playing something very close to what you hear on the record in the melancholic and bluesy middle part.

Many of the key parts in our songs get nicknames like “Evanescence”, “Pekka Pohjola”, “Zappa” and “Housunousu” so that we can refer to them when we talk about the arrangements. This particular bit got dubbed the “Gary Moore -section”. It’s such an emotive part that during guitar tracking I just had to add a tiny Blackmore-reference to it.

~ by Marko Oikarinen on July 12, 2009.

Posted in Human Wheel