“Introducing ‘Almost Happy’ live on stage, I usually refer to this as our “pandemic song”. Every artist has one, and this charts a turning point in my mindset during some very dark times.

Even before the pandemic, 2020 was shaping up to be a tough year. In the February, a friend committed suicide. Then in May, during the first wave of lockdowns, another very close friend died from causes completely unrelated to covid. Within a month or so of that, like a lot of people, I lost my last remaining source of income and was scared about being able to pay the bills.

One gloomy Sunday afternoon, with nothing else to do, I picked up my guitar, and for no explicit reason decided to try and rise to the challenge of writing ‘a happy song’.

Generally speaking, I failed. But what emerged was something that acknowledged the good things I had left in my life, and the fact that in many situations we can choose whether we focus on the positives or the negatives.

To that end, it’s a companion to ‘Hollowhead’, but whereas that song is one of the heaviest things we’ve done, Almost Happy feels like more of a departure.

The first few times we played the track live I was really worried our audience would hate it, because it’s so different to everything else we do. At least it seems that way to us. But on the contrary, lots of people have been telling us its their new favourite! 

So that would usually introduce a new sense of pressure when unveiling the studio recording to the world, but on this occasion we’ve had help from some rather decorated individuals…

First and foremost, Mat Hector’s on the drums. He’s been doing session work for us to help keep our live shows going while we recruit a permanent band member. If you don’t know Mat - he’s a legend. When we were first introduced and he did some recording with us (playing on ‘Versus Heart’ and ‘The Way You Die’), he was on a short break between a run of huge shows with Iggy Pop. His other clients include Grace Jones, Marc Almond / The Loveless and Razorlight.

Mat has his own studio, where he often collaborates with Mark Neary. As well as being a session musician (playing primarily bass and double bass for artists like Adele!), Mark is also a seasoned engineer, whose most notable credits include work with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and The Rolling Stones, no less.

With Mark at the wheel for this recording, the process was swift and wholly enjoyable. As a bassist himself, he was able to get Andy comfortable right away. It was also wonderful for Ben to be released from engineering duties and focus on playing guitar.

So we got the drums, bass and all the guitars, including mine, down on day one, then tracked the vocals and finished the mix on day 2.

The third wise man in this pre-Christmas story, is the highly celebrated mastering engineer, Barry Grint. Bazza’s credits are jaw-dropping, including releases from iconic artists such as Madonna, Prince, Duran Duran, A-Ha, Bon Jovi, and too many more to mention. 

We’re more than almost happy with it ;D"