Celebratory track by track of songs from The Answer: Ain’t No Doubt About It.
Recording the second track, Ain’t No Doubt About It on my new album, The Answer, was probably one of the most fun songs to lay down.
The song starts with the chorus “Ain’t no doubt about it, ain’t no doubt it’s true…”, which can be an unusual start to a song beginning with a chorus, but I wanted to get straight to the point of what the song is about - even though it’s quite a simple sentiment lyrically, it creates an exciting beginning.
When we recorded it, we were in StudiOwz recording studio in Pembrokeshire. All of the core band, Jimmy Brewer (guitarist), Jack Beddis (drums) and Tom Sinnett (bass) and myself, got into the room and just played it together to get a feel for the track to start with. It was such a fun vibe in the live room together, that we felt we should try to capture that atmosphere, so when you listen to it, you get the feel that you could be in that room with us. Having been inspired by music from the 60s and 70s in particular, we wanted to start recording it in a way that those artists would have recorded their songs - live together in a room, sounding like an actual band, not just multi tracking everything.
It wasn’t always so simple with this track, there was a bit of a stumbling block when it came to recording the verses. They felt too sparse and stagnant against the powerful choruses and I was worried that I needed to re write the lyrics, or re work the arrangement. It wasn’t until Owain Fleetwood Jenkins (of StudiOwz) came up with the idea to strip it back further and draw from a song like Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” - so the drums and percussion are the soul focus of the verses. We then coupled Jack Beddis’ drums and Toby Couling’s percussion with backing vocals to bring texture, and hammond organ to give it momentum leading back into the driving chorus.
The bass played by Tom Sinnett is driving the song throughout, he plays the majority on quite a high register, but when it reaches the middle 8, it drops down to a lower register expanding the frequency spectrum of the song. Even though there’s not a lot going on in the song instrumentation wise, it’s easily carried by the fantastic musicians that play on it. I’m a big believer in not putting a part on a track for the sake of filling space - when you have the right production, sometimes less is more - the song certainly doesn’t feel sparse now!
I invited Dan Moore down to play Hammond Organ and Piano on this song, he’s such an inspiring musician to be around, he came up with the piano hook which is repeated throughout. He also played that awesome ascending piano line in octaves that lead out of the middle 8 to really ramp it up to the last choruses.
The play out at the end was just a jam together with the band to be honest, we just wanted to let rip and have fun. I love Jimmy Brewer’s playing anyway, but especially his guitar throughout this song, it feels quite sassy and bold, but it isn’t til the play out at the end that he really digs in and you notice how talented he is. The play out ended up being really, really long, so Owain had to do a fade out - (hopefully) leaving the listener wanting more.
It fills me with such happiness hearing Ain’t No Doubt About It now, so I hope that whoever listens to it, gets filled with as much joy as it did me when writing and recording it.
Check out the track, Ain't No Doubt About It HERE!
You can buy a physical copy of the record on Vinyl/CD HERE!
Or on all digital platforms here: - Bandcamp
- Spotify
Carmel Records - a Caru Music Ltd Company