New Release – Target by Sean Buckley and Chris James Willows
Sean Buckley and Chris James Willows released their first collaboration ‘Pull‘ in July and they have another one coming up on October 15th. Sean wrote the music and Chris wrote the lyrics. I spoke to Chris about the upcoming release.
“When I first heard Sean’s track ‘Carriage’. It was immediately obvious I could write vocal for it. I think maybe he’d tweeted asking for a vocalist to collab with. I quickly headed over to his Spotify page to have a listen. Carriage was one of the first tracks I heard and it just clicked. I bought the mp3 and dropped it into my DAW, plugged a mic in and just started to sing over it. It didn’t take long before id found the melodies. What tends to happen is, I’ll take a listen back to the random mumblings and somehow there’s a few lines that work together. Suddenly there’s a narrative and I fill in the gaps. I think I’d saved it as Glok/Pull… It turns out Sean likes single word titles so we went with ‘Pull’.”
“Sean seemed eager for more collaborations as once again I’d spotted his plea for more vocalists. And although I had a long list of projects to work on, I fancied trying another. I went back to his catalogue and came across a track called ‘Melt’. Again, I knew I could cut it up and and restitch it into a structure that could carry a vocal. I used the same approach as ‘Pull’. Sung a load of takes with the hope of landing that melody. Thankfully once again it didn’t take long before things began to stick, and a theme started to emerge.”
“Having been happily married to my best friend for over twenty years, it’s sometimes difficult to write about relationships. I tend to like an underlying darkness in my lyrics. Even if just a hint, I feel it lends an edge to a song. ‘Target’ revolves around a character really. Someone that feels he gets unnecessarily blamed for a relationship not working out. He’s looking for an escape and feels threatened. Even considers faking his own death by shattering his clothes next to a lake. It’s just me playing around with a theme that I’ve read about but can’t actually relate to.”
“The fact is, if all my songs were about me and my life I’d be writing sickening pop music that shines so bright it’d taste like a cup of sugar.“
“I figured I needed a character to carry the weight of the lyrics. I can’t claim to have any real personal input lyrically, but I don’t think it makes it any less powerful. Sometimes songs need drama. Something to match the mood of the music.”
“Sean seemed pretty happy with what I’d done and overall I think it went down pretty well.
I’ve worked on so many projects over the last year or so. If Covid gave me anything, it was time. Time to sit and learn my way around logic. Twitter and logic opened up the way I can work. Sending songs back and forth to friends around the world.”
“It’s an obvious way of finding a song title, pulling out a lyric, but in this case I think ‘Target’ captures this track perfectly.
Chris is currently working on a solo album under the working title of ‘The Sleeping Forecast’.
“I can’t seem to stop writing songs for it. I’ve hit a purple patch so I’m rolling with it. There’s also an albums worth of material I’ve co-written with good friend Gareth Williams (Masters Of War) a longer project due to meeting up every few months at Superfly Studios. A few more collabs in the pipeline too. I’m never short of things to do and I’m loving every minute of it.”
