“Until The Dawn…” not only closed the album, but it was the song that (we THOUGHT) was going to close out our second marathon studio session down in Wilmington, NC. By day three of the session, we definitely felt as though we were on a pretty good winning streak, especially since Nicolay and I had cranked out the music for what would end up becoming “Asking For A Friend” on day one, and “As Fast As You Can” the following day. By April 2, 2015 (day three), we were looking to keep those tempos up and continue to have some more fun during the creation process. We had been snapping pics of the studio session and posting them up via social media to let folks know that we were putting together something amazing…. we just didn’t know what the hell FOR specifically (possibly the +FE “crew” album that I’ve mentioned before) either way, we knew we were sitting on a strong set of new music.

The music for “Until The Dawn” began with an agreed upon tempo and some drums Nic programmed that the two of us decided to just jam on for a little while. I think at that point, we really wanted to take our time with this one to ensure that it didn’t have the same feel as everything else we had already made that week or during the previous session. We even posted a 15-second video I took of us doing just that… I was on the Rhodes and Nic on the Moog Voyager messing around with some ideas. Check the full version…

When it comes to recalling these stories, “my right hand man” a/k/a my voice memo is GOLDEN. Because of it, I’m able to remember that before this particular video was shot, what we had for the main groove was a simple two-chord piano progression. I have audio of me sitting on the Moog Little Phatty playing around with a bassline while the track was running in the background. Once again, I recorded it so that I wouldn’t forget what the hell I was playing at the time. You’d be surprised at how often you forget how you’ve played something, especially after that “record” button has been hit. So to avoid having to go through the whole, “Ayo!! What did I play on that part again?!” I’ll hit the record button on my phone and capture it just to be safe …voice memo is undefeated. From those original two chords that we had, Nic got on the Yamaha Motif and expanded the main groove progression from two to four chords. Once he did that, the song felt like it was getting somewhere now that it had some legitimate movement in it. I hopped on the Rhodes and wanted to see what it would sound like if I decorated the music with some arpeggiated chords on top (that’s exactly what you see me doing in the video above while holding the camera). From there, I got back on the Little Phatty board to record the bassline I had figured out earlier. The problem was, the original bassline I had was for a two-chord progression and not the four chords that we were now working with. Therefore, I needed to come up with something different… Once I locked in on a new bassline, I recorded it and played it all the way through accompanied by the already recorded piano parts …that is until the very end when the pianos stopped. At that part, I went straight to C and on instinct started playing and riffing in C minor – just like that, we had a second part to our song. We were jokingly referring to that change as the “Marvin” change because it reminded us of how Marvin Gaye songs (“What’s Going On”, for example) would go from an uplifting tone to all of a sudden stopping on a dime and nosediving directly into a darker almost thought provoking and emotionally thick minor progression. THAT was the part we couldn’t wait to hear vocals on because we knew it was gonna be crazy…. And when we got that email back from Phonte that read:

“NO GAMES.”

We KNEW what the deal was. I loved what happened on this track vocally because it allowed Tamisha Waden to GO IN. On “Truce” she was somewhat subdued, which of course worked for the track. She got to do some hollering on “Work It To The Top” but still in more of a background vocal capacity. This was the song where she was literally vocally unleashed. We had all heard her on stage, we all know her capabilities and that her roots are in that chuuuuuch – this was the song that took her over the top. Tamisha was able to step out there, flex her muscles vocally and let loose. I can remember hearing the song for the first time and literally yelling out loud, “Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!” Once finished, it served as a PERFECT “part two” to “Milk and Honey” – still very uptempo, lively and lacking verses in order to keep the energy going as more of a vamp. Hearing all of the new percussion and accents Nic added to the song also added plenty of movement and bounce to it. We were getting closer to completing this project and I was feeling more proud and anxious by the DAY.