Singled Out: St Helens
07/08/2009
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(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Jarrod Quarrell from St Helens (electric guitar, keys, melodica, percussion, vocals) tells us about 'How To Choose Your Guru Pt 2' from their brand new album. We now turn it over to Jarrod for the story:'How to Choose Your Guru, Pt 2' shares similar sentiment with it's predecessor, a song i wrote about 11 years earlier, titled simply; 'How to Choose Your Guru'. The original was inspired by a woman i shared a house with when i was about Eighteen. The woman, who was about 33 at the time, was an immortalist, that is, someone who believes they are going to live forever. Literally. I used to wonder why she wanted to live forever because her life seemed to me horribly mundane and she was a depressive schizophrenic. She would sit around cutting out articles from second hand women's magazines waiting to collect the crud from our bong so she could dry it out and smoke it again ( if you don't know what that means trust me that knowing will not improve your life). Among the new age/self help books on her bookshelves was a book titled 'How to Choose Your Guru'. I didn't read it or anything, but it inspired a song. The sentiment was "who's it gonna be? Which one suits your needs? There are many you could choose, who do you relate to best?" The sentiment for part 2 is more watching two prospective gods/guru's battling for the chance to be your aide and wondering as to which guru will display enough to win your affection. Who will provide you the most? Parts 1 and 2 are not opposite sides of a coin, rather just a glimpse from the side as it spins through the air. I demoed it on a four track tape recorder originally. I'd written the main riff on guitar but wasn't happy with it. I thought it was to jagged and that it needed more roll. I ended up just playing it on a casio tonebank just using the piano setting, then overdubbed a reverb drenched melodica and a delayed cowbell as percussion. I also added a bass part played on guitar. Sounds great, really dubby. From there I just taught the band. We tried to keep the demo feel by keeping the melodica and cowbell and Karl Scullin developed my original bass idea into what you hear on the album. Easy. Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
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