Hey everyone,
Davina here. I hope you are all doing well :)
As our album release is fast approaching I thought I'd write a blog about our song and latest online video, 'I Wonder'. The song was never actually meant as a single (over 5 minutes long...not exactly radio friendly these days!!) but from the moment it was born it was definitely a fan favourite and captured a mood and something special. So we thought we'd do a simple but beautiful video to represent it. We also wanted to do it after the loss of arguably our biggest fan, Scott Watson who sadly passed away last year. Although the song wasn't written about him, it's lyrical content, "And i wonder what you're doing right now" fits. 'Scotty Boy' as he was known was at every Edinburgh show we ever did from very early on in our musical ventures and was always first to buy a ticket for a show and the first person to post a picture of a new song, tshirt or poster.
The song itself came from a fictional story Ross and I made up. We imagined the film of the song before we actually wrote the song. The 'imaginary' scene opens with an old man looking at a photograph and reflecting back on his early days in the theatre waiting for his big break and falling for the female lead that he hoped to perform with. He was the understudy of the male lead and looked on every night hoping to get his chance...not only at being the male lead but to act and dance with the girl he secretly loved. Sometimes its good to feel a different sense in songwriting and to become an actor so to speak and see things through someone else's eyes.
The song goes on to tell the story of the intense night where his dream becomes a reality which explains the verse lyrics, "Hanging in the side wings, waiting on my cue from you" and "just so you know this, if I can get through this, it's everything I've ever wanted". I'm sure we have all had that kind of nervous adrenaline emotion when something or someone means that much to you and you want to do your best. When you listen to the song now, try imagine it. (There's another blog post coming soon with the full lyrics)
We recorded the song in Cambridgeshire, a couple of hours outside London where we rented a country house for two weeks. Below is some footage of Ross recording the haunting guitar part for the intro of the song. I have no idea who is in the creepy portrait painting behind him btw. The eyes did watch us everyday! We also had to often dodge bats in the studio as they seemed to be drawn to the melodies. Maybe we were making some echolocation sounds without knowing it. There's a pic in the gallery below of the wee dude that spent the night with us curled up in a candle. So cute! We released him the next day at dusk and he circled round a couple of times and disappeared into the night.
One day we might have the budget to make 'I Wonder - The Movie' but in the meantime here is our music video for the song which we shot late one night when we were in London. We sure did cover some ground that night! Some of the locations include Embankment, Hampstead and Camden Town. I've included some behind the scenes below pics too that were taken by my friend Nadia who helped us out through the shoot...
Thanks for reading this, hope you enjoy the video. Will do another blog soon. Let me know if there's anything specific you'd like me to feature or talk about. You can get me on twitter @davinamars or on Facebook. I Wonder is actually already available on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music etc if you want to get a hold of it.
DD.x