Roller Disco

A few people have sent us messages from Peru over the festive period telling us we need to go there. Fili's suggested a sponsor sheet to raise the funds. Our song Roller Disco was the 9th most played song on the main alternative radio station there for 2010. Unfortunately 98% of all music in Peru is downloaded via torrent files so we dont get any real money from this. But still, it's gratifying that there's people on the other side of the world who are into the band and something we've written is playing a little backdrop scene in their lives. Rodney Bingenheimer, the glam/punk legend , also picked up on it and there was a point during 2010 where he was playing it every week on his KROQ show.

It's a funny song for me personally. Just after you record something you always hate it. Then you like it, then you hate it, then eventually you form a kind of married relationship where you like/hate/love/dont care about a song. 

I always thought it should have a disco groove like an old Philly soul record with strings and clean soul type sounds and should just flow from start to finish. What we ended up with was so different. Gordy our drummer at the time made it more complex rhythmically.  I guess I've just got to hold my hands up and say he was exactly right with the way it was recorded. 

After we'd done the drums and bass I was bumbling around in the studio with my old telecaster doing Slade impersonations and Kev just said "that's the one!". The rhythm guitar is meant to be like "Gudbuy to Jane" or "Jean Genie". The crazy guitar solo was played by Gary and he was giggling , doing Eddie Van Halen arpeggios that were going in and out of tune but kind of sounded like Daft Punk as well. Me and Kev (the engineer) jumped on this and made him do it on the track. We had to go and do a gig that night and he had 5 minutes to get it down- but between Gordy, Steph and Gary there's some serious musicianship going on in the song. The sweet part of the song with the strings and harmonies is so lush- there's loads of pretty stuff that you cant really hear because we couldnt squeeze it in the mix. Fili just nailed the vibe of the song at the time.

It's one of those songs that has a little life of its own. Long may it travel.