'The James'

Today my body has gone "Aggghhh pain pain pain, hurt, hurt, hurty hurt hurt, rrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Today my mind has gone "Sod you body, I feel good!"

It's the second day in a row that my pain hasn't dragged me down and yeah, I'll say it, I'm proud of that. I am proud of myself. We're not ever really meant to talk about being proud of ourselves are we? It's 'blowing your own trumpet' or being 'big headed' but why shouldn't we talk about the times that we've done something and thought 'Yeah, good for me!'

So today I met James, 'the James'. For months I've heard everything James has to say about the album and my vocal performances but I've never actually met him. Just as I began to think that maybe James was actually the name for Steve's imaginary friend that lives in the studio there he was in the flesh! Who knew it?! He's real!

You see, James is helping Steve with all the editing and production side of the album. I go in with Steve and we'll write a song, record it and spend some time putting it all together and then James goes in with Steve and listens to it with a new pair of ears and they make it the best it can be. Up until now we've just never been in the same place at the same time. It was great to finally meet.

The three of us got on like a house on fire and I honestly had one of the best afternoons that I've had for a long time. We did what I would call a typical 'Steve and Chloe' and had some really massively deep and personal conversations but there was no sense of 'Oh this is a bit weird, talking about all this with someone I met half an hour ago!' Perhaps now it won't be a 'Steve and Chloe' it will be a 'Steve, James and Chloe'.

A few songs on the album are written as a direct result of the drastic change my life has been through, the reasons behind them are really personal but I didn't feel at all uncomfortable being so honest with James in the room. It was clear he really got where they were coming from and that was nice.

It was good to talk about everything too, I say everything, I mean, the music, the process, the reason for the songs, how we all feel about it as a whole album rather then just individual songs. I think it must be impossible to talk about 'everything' that ever was EVER but you know what I mean.

It's funny how the three of us from very different backgrounds all ended up sat in a recording studio together on the 9th October 2013. I find it fascinating that there we all were, each of us putting a bit of ourselves into this album and seeing how our lives will forever be sort of entwined in this record. 

We managed to get the vocals done (take that jaw infection!) for the final track which is insanely exciting. I almost can't comprehend that that's it, it's almost done! Although in many ways it is just the beginning, the journey of actually creating this album is almost through!