Don´t Look Down

I continued working down at the Nightbird studio at the Sunset Marquis. Jed and I started a collaboration, and he brought on his old time friend Jeff Barry. A part from being a super soulful and wonderful man, Jeff is also a songwriting legend. His creativity spans over long time and having songs like " Sugar sugar" or "Chapel of Love" from the 60´s up until today, the man is fanatic. Get accointed:  this is music history!!   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Barry

Jed Leiber, Me and Jeff Barry at the Sunset Marquis

A very close friend of mine was in trouble, and I wanted to write a song for him, to cheer him up and keep fighting the bad stuff. A song of encouragement and comfort.
I have always had the dream of me standing on a cliff, and in every dream different things happen on that cliff. I had the image of us standing up there, and it was awfully high.
I told my friend that if you look up, you won´t feel the fear the same way you do when you look up. As an experiment, try to look up to teh sky and think a negative thought. It is very difficult.
So, whenever your feeling down, Look Up!!
Jeff nailed the lyric with our hours of conversation and one night, we went up to the bar in the hotel. Jed introduced me to Billy Gibbons, who just happened to be around. He was in songwriting mode so he joined in to finish the song. It was a very special evening and one of those moments I love so much,  when things just fall into place and you are open for anything to happen. I mean, who would have known about this, when I woke that morning? Sometimes it is good to have no set plans, cuz it open sup to chance. I reckon it is also very typical for that hotel. I mean, where in the world would I end up having a drink in the bar  with Bryan Adams??

Coming down to the studio and time for vocals on Don´t look down, it looked like this in the vocal room. That´s love! The staff sure knew how to treat vocal chords:):)
When the song was ready and done, Billy invited us over to his radio show where he sends live every weekend.
That was the first time Don´t look Down was played, newly baked from the studio oven .  Since Billy love  classical cars, the radio show was held in the Classic Car center in LA.  Countless really cool, stylish cars were displayed, among them his huge private collection. I fancy old cars, and at the time I had a Morris Minor 58, so I kinda felt like one in the gang...:)

Billy Gibbons and Miss Meja

                                                             Back to the studio we continued writing more songs.
One of them is "Surrender". for some reason we did not finalize it, and I am still working on the lyrics. Some songs take longer time to mature, others are written in a heart beat. That´s just the way it is.
 Like Keith Urban once told me, so wisely " You can not force songs to be written, you just have to wait until they demand to be born"
So, "Surrender" is definitely on the upcoming album. I even have painted a huge painting for it.....symbolizing the open arms, surrender into the great wide open!

The Marquis Sessions

Session at Night Bird Studios at the Sunset Marquis

After spending 2 days at Dave Ways fab homestudio in the Hills I figured it would be a good thing to continue the recordings at the Nightbird Studio down in the hotel. We had some great days of music, friends dropping by and creativity. I am a total fan of both the hotel and the studio, and the whole setup is brilliant. Not only on the technical side where the studio holds basically all you want ( and more) but the vibe is there. The vibe to me is the most important thing. I gathered the guys.....

Pete McNeal, Dave Wilder, Jeremy Ruzumna, Me, Lyle Workman

If I could I´d play with these guys forever.  We recorded a whole bunch of songs, and some of them will be on the upcoming album. Friends dropping by in the process, Billy Steinberg came down as we recorded out song " I know how you feel" that we wrote a week earlier ( with Josh Alexander), Bruce Lampkov joined the band doing handclaps on the live on the spot written song " Still Wondering"
We had 30 minutes left before time was up, so we just said, what the heck. let´s jam a song together....turned out great ( also coming up.......) and Jeff Barry, the wonderful I can not say enough good things about this man, who shaped up the song "enough" with his brilliant lyrics. (also coming up....)

Jeremy Ruzumna, Me, Jeff Barry

I got a wonderful bracelet as a gift from Jeff. I have worned it out and it breaks my heart. Still keep the beeds..... Sometimes it is nice to hold on to the passed. Even though it has already passed.):)  Maybe that´s one of the reasons why I do this " blog from yesterday" right now....It was such a great period o fmy life and we had such a blast, and musically it was an adventure.  The Hotel is like the good old Hotel California that The Eagles sing about.  You can check in but you can never leave... Living, eating, breathing, singing, recording in the same space. I rarely got out of there. Occasionally visited the best Japanese little whole in the wall place round the corner, but that´s it.

Me n Lyle Workman at the Marquis

Jeremy Rusumna, the man the myth the DUDE!!

One night I was heading out for dinner, when I found this guy sitting in the stairs outside the hotel. He looked at me,  bit gloomy and asked me for a lift to the Roxy.  I had no clue who he was, but yeah, sure...jump in...On the short trip from the Marquis to The Roxy he was singing for me the whole time. "- What do you think of this melody ??" he asked and changed to something new. I was amused, he was probably stoned.  As I stopped the car, he looked at me for the first time....said thank you very much for the ride, now time for work! " and then he left. I say the signs outside the club saying " Tonight The Lemonheads" I had just driven the singer to his gig.
We continued recording, Oh, gotta mention the master technician himself by the mixing board Barry Rudolph. He was a lovely fella. You know. I have been lucky ...of all the peeps I have bumped into, very very few have been assholes.

Jason from Nightbird, Me and Jed Leiber

Back to LA on the Path, Sunset Marquis Hotel

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In February I went back to LA. I had a bunch of songs to record and wanted to write new ones with my collabs there. But where to record and with who was yet a mystery. Via my publishing-company Kobalt I was booked to stay at Hotel Sunset Marquis. I thought it would be just another hotel, but it really didn´t turn out to be just only that. Arriving early evening to the hotel, checked into my room and went down to get something to eat before my eyelids hit the floor.....The hotel has a quite small room for dining inside, and there I sat by myself enjoying a lovely meal, when a man comes up to me, says hi and welcome to the hotel..".-you just arrived ehh??you must be an artist???"   "-Yes I replied" in my daze... "-Well you are here all by yourself and there are 2 gentlemen in the bar sitting by themselves, would you mind if I introduced them to you?  Before I even had time to take a breath 2 happy guys stood at my table. They were giggling and friendly and I asked them to sit down. We started talking about everything else except what we were working with..but later of course that came up. The wonderful guys were Stuart Price and Steve Sidelnyk, working down in the studio in the hotel with the new Madonna album. So, the big world in LA became very small when first, Stuart, who´s been working with Madonna for a long time, of course knew my friend Jonas Åkerlund who makes a lot of her videos etc, but Steve, who suddenly became quiet and said "-sooo you are THAT Meja, whos album I played on a few years ago????? "It turns out that Hamish (Stuart) who produced my "Mellow" album, were best buddies w Steve and called him in for some drum additions in London. 2 degrees of separation...
One afternoon I was doing down the elevator to the studio to see the guys. The door opened and a blond spiky haired stranger stood there and said " Hi Meja! How are you doing???" He was also going down to the studio, that he apparently was the owner to. For a weird reason it felt like I had known him forever. That´s how I got introduced to Jed Leiber. Timing.

Jed Leiber and Meja

I decided to start the recordings at Dave Ways studio in his house in the Hills. It has a great vibe and Dave is one of the most talented people I know. As I trust him dearly he gathered the band. And the band...I loved "my" band. Keyboards :Jeremy Ruzumna, Bass :Dave Wilder, Guitar : Lyle Workman and on drums for day one Brian McCloud.  We started recording Roses in December. All the takes live and the song straight thru as is should be. The vocals are just one long take with no corrections what so ever. That´s what we ended up with and that´s what´s on the album.
I owe Dave thanks for these wonderful sessions!! Really!!

Brian McCloud and Dave Way 

Jeremy Ruzumna and Dave Wilder

Jeremy and I

to be continued......

Roses In December

On my way back to Sweden from LA I stopped for a few days in London. A friend of mine was opening for Bryan Adams and I thought it would be great to see, first and foremost my friend, but also Mr Adams (whom I later took several elevator trips with at the Marquis..but that´s another story..) Enjoying London, and my girlfriends flew in, and we had a blast. Friends are what you need when your heart is broken. I went home to the south of Sweden. I needed to re-claim my energy and re-charge my heart. I came home first days of December, where snow had already fallen. Heavy hearted I went out into my back yard, to find that there was ONE rose still in full bloom, in the midst of all the white cold snow. It was so beautiful, and inspiring. Still Hope. A rose can bloom in December. I took a snapshot went in and sat down in the living-room, with a candle lit I wrote Roses In December.

Urban Gypsy in LA, At the Rainbows End

Arriving in Los Angeles, finally, after spent a month by a lake:):)  The first thing I did was to go to the ocean. I stayed in a small hotel in Santa Monica that my friend and co-writer Billy Steinberg recommended.  Billy lended me a guitar for my stay, and I spent hours and hours inside my room writing.  I took long walks on the beach every day, and down there, by the pier and along the beach towards Topanga I started the lyrics for Rainbows End in my mind, without knowing it would become that song. The mix of fancy cars, bikes and rollerbladers, kids playing and dogs running, and homeless sleeping.

As usual in this world the balance is off track. The Super rich and the super poor, the good ones and the real bad guys, The happy dudes and the mellow ones and the ones full of themselves where others are hungry. The duality on this planet rules. Finding balance in a shaky outside world we need to find peace within. So much right and so much wrong. " At The Rainbows End" became a kind of melancholic song...where " It don´t matter what I do anyway" shows some kind of hopelessness towards life and our expectations (mine in this case.):):). That´s what I felt back then, and now I have been trying to crawl out of that whole.

Inner and outer peace....that´s the key ...  LA showed me it´s best sides. Billy took me for a showcase and there I met my gaaaaaarlfriend and her husband. They have become close and important people in my life. Time flew and before I had to get back to Sweden, they organized a lovely dinner for me, where Paul Buckmaster, the one and only, made some super fab Italian food for us. A night to remember, REAL luxury= Good friends, great food and inspiring conversation. LA all I can say is...I´ll B back

Inspiration Etta James on Janis....

NashVegas

The art show had ended and I was preparing the US writing trip. My publishing-company Kobalt Muisc, had prepared a great line up of writers for me in Nashville, along with my other  Nashvegas friends. Maia Sharp came and  picked me up at the airport.
First time in Nashville, even the airport had a sense of music about it. The city breathes and lives music. It is so present in every little corner of the place. I fell in love right away.
In a couple of days we wrote Bohemian Behavior and Unpredictable, song that we are recording now in November. Writing with Maia is always  pure pleasure.
From the first time I met her, at Miles Copelands songwriting sessions at the castle in France back in 1999, we´ve always stayed in touch and been collaborating. We wrote "Wake up call", for the Mellow album. and a cool track with Howard Jones back then. That was a memorable week at the castle. The vibe, the mix of writers, like Lisa Loeb, Keith Urban, Howard Jones, Pat Mcdonald, Conner Reeves...so inspiring and fun.
Every day we were teamed up with new writers, and the rule was one song a day. At dinnertime we played our newly written songs for  each other and gave feedback. And had great food and great wine and great fun. Maia is one of the most talented writers I know, check her out!!  www.maiasharp.com.

Nashville was hot like summertime, still it was late september. I was surprised how green the surroundings were. Later I got to know that they call Nashville "The Emerald City". Now I get it.

I ended up staying in Nashville for a month. I totally loved the atmosphere there. And my friends....I crashed at Emma Grandillo´s place and we ended up sitting in the porch writing songs most days and evenings, inviting others to come over and hang and have a good time.  "Little White Feather " Inspired by the Native American Indians, was born there, and Lonesome Rider, Drunk Dialing and Second Life, Sentimental Rain.  I learned that´s how you do it here, you just write and write and hang and have a good time and write some more.There´s always a guitar in the backseat of the car.  I met so many interesting people. Learning something new every day.. Like the stranger at the Cafe who showed me how I could make my own books in my MAC.  There I made my first book with my art in it,  And all  the wonderful people, Dennis Matkosky, Whitney Dane, Monty Powell, Anna Wilson, Tom DeLuca, Jim Lauderdale, Jay Joyce... a talented and great guy, and old time friend of Emmas. We entered his studio one afternoon........(love the door mat.)

Me being an ocean lover, I just had to find somewhere to relax by the water whilst being in the middle of the country... I found a lake.....it served it´s purpose......I took long walks every day there, and found my place to sit and get inspired, write or meditate.

                                    After a while I was longing for the ocean. Mission completed.
                                                                    Time to go to LA