TN:184 Myles Smith & Peter Fenn

Welcome and guest introductions

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1:00Hello, I'm John Kennedy and joining me for this episode of Take Notes are Miles Smith and producer Peter Fenn to talk about how they wrote, recorded and produced the album My Mess, My Heart, My Life. Recently, I took a day trip down to Hove, down on the south coast of England, to meet up with Miles Smith and Peter Fenn at Salvation Studios, one of the studios where Miles often does a lot of his recording. Peter had flown in from LA for some UK writing sessions as well, so we were really lucky to have him there too.

1:32And what a pair they make. The chemistry between Miles and Peter is obvious from the moment that they sit down together. You can hear how much they've enjoyed making music with each other over the years, and that sense of spontaneity and excitement runs right through this album, I think. And that chemistry makes its way into the conversation too, as we dig into some of Miles' biggest songs, including Stargazing. Yes, Stargazing, the global smash hit. So pleased that Miles was up for looking at that and telling us how he created it. If you'd like to watch our conversation, the full video episode is available to see on the Take Notes Patreon page.

2:06As well as some exciting extras that aren't in the audio podcast, the full video episode also includes a look into Peter's logic sessions as he's breaking down the tracks. There's a lot to see, so head over to patreon.com forward slash take notes to check that out. Thank you as well to our partners at Tape It for supporting the show, as well as their flagship app, Tape It, the recording app made specifically for musicians. They have also released a brand new denoiser plug-in, the Tape It denoiser. It does an amazing job at removing background noise while keeping your recording sounding completely natural.

2:38It's also half price. So to find out more, head over to tape.it forward slash denoiser. But now, without further ado, let's get started. We'll see you next time.

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Background on Myles Smith and Peter Fenn

3:48Myles Smith is a singer-songwriter from Luton in the UK. As a teenager, Myles performed at local open mic nights before focusing on building a following on TikTok through cover songs. Going on to release a few singles, the approach proved successful, leading to a record deal with Sony in 2023. In 2024, Myles released the single Stargazing. The track was a viral hit and has since been streamed over 1 billion times globally. His success continued with the release of the follow-up single, Nice to Meet You.

4:20This momentum helped establish Myles as one of the UK's most promising new artists. And in 2024, he was named BBC Introducing Artist of the Year and won the Brit Rising Star Award. He is also only the second artist after Lewis Capaldi to sell out the O2 Arena in London before releasing a debut album. My Mess, My Heart, My Life, his debut, arrived in June 2026, working alongside longtime collaborator Peter Fenn. Peter Fenn is a Los Angeles-based songwriter and producer.

4:51Peter's career in music began at age 18 after picking up a guitar during a summer break. Since then, and having dedicated countless hours to honing his craft, he has worked with a wide range of artists across pop, rap, and alternative music, including Lewis Capaldi, Leve, Megan Thee Stallion, Fred Again, and many more. A consistent collaborator with Myles, Peter has most recently taken on co-writing and production duties for My Mess, My Heart, My Life. Today, I'm at Salvation Studios, and I'm joined by Myles and Peter.

5:22And what better way to start than by hearing something from the album.

Heaven

5:25This is Heaven. It's the sound of your heartbeat when you're close to my body, and all I can say is you're beautiful. It's the way that you love me when there's no one around. Oh, I finally found what I'm looking for. Oh, oh, oh, we have his magic like fireflies starting to glow.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

6:22it is heaven by miles smith from the album my mess my heart my life and i'm very pleased to say that i'm sat here with miles smith hello miles hello and peter fenn hello peter how we doing and we're in salvation studios in hove very near brighton which you recorded some of the album i think yeah yeah we did a lot of the recording here we didn't manage to do much writing here because

6:53sort of like wrote the album literally all over the world but this was like a good anchor in the recording process for us so it's great to be here in one of the locations where you created this record it's very exciting and clearly a place that you have affection for we love this place yeah probably first time without a beer or tequila in here so i guess um i mean we we've got a lot to

Stargazing creation and production

7:25talk about maybe we should we dive straight into the music let's do it the first song we're going to look at is stargazing yes sir the billion streaming world conquering song so maybe we'll have a blast of the master of that amazing and then we'll find out how you create let's do it time stood still just like a photograph you made me feel like this will last forever looking in your eye

7:59i see my whole life oh they say you know it when you know it i don't know oh promise that you hold me close don't let me go it is stargazing by miles smith which is now part of the album my mess my heart my life but

8:45originally part of the a minute a moment ep yes from 2024 so it's a couple years old now i mean obviously it's conquered the world um and and it's still conquering i'm sure um how did it start how did when and how did you two start working together man where did we start working together that's the throwback we started working 23 2023 june of 2023 damn you remember it yeah i remember because i was coming home from a trip with me and sarah we were like driving and we had two days together and i was like yo i think i'm gonna be late to the session i'm driving back from utah

9:16and we did the night damn yeah that was a night that was crazy yeah no i was at the time like early into like my sort of like co-writing so i'd like been in america at this point maybe like six seven weeks and like i was just with everyone i think it was like trying to find the magic trying to find the person that like really understood the music that i was trying to make and i worked with amazing people but i think pete was like my last session right yeah i was in the u.s and it was like i was burnt out and i was like yeah cool sweet uh let's just do it and then i got in and i was like

9:50this is my guy it was immediate it was like immediate and yeah i think our first session we wrote a song called my home which was like my first song that had traction online um not long after a song called solo which was like i think the thing that gave stargazing the run-up that it did and then we did stargazing so yeah we we basically like shout out an ep that did really good in like the space of a few weeks of knowing each other and then straight into stargazing totally it's funny because i feel like we both have worked with a lot of people but i think when you find your person

10:24it's pretty clear you know like right away there was just so much chemistry there was a lot of like humor and laughter like for us we always have so much fun when we're writing and i think it's so important to never forget that and so like it was just laughs yeah and i think like everyone would know like british humor and american humor is like oil and water sometimes and i found out the hard way and my first time being in america that like sarcasm doesn't stick the same but when i met pete and like pete being pete is like a britain disguise it was like yeah just felt amazing it was immediate

10:56yeah i actually remember after we finished it the next day we went out for beers like at the boardwalk with one of your boys and we just like hung on a personal note too it was just like oh i want to hang out with this dude yeah yeah that's brilliant and then how did stargazing come about damn yeah stargazing so this was like oh maybe second or third no maybe like third trip in i think of working together because like we'd always make the effort to either pete would fly to me or i'd fly to him we'd spend like a couple weeks together and we were sort of like coming towards the end of like a two week of just we were we were in malibu and like you know i had the bright idea of like i want to go

11:30malibu because it's amazing and then i got there and i realized like there's no one there so it's like me and pete in this massive house because i was like my first time having label budgets i was like i'm getting the biggest thing i could find it's like hot tub sun view of the sea and then very quickly you realize no one lives in malibu so like we're going insane at this point it's like we're both just in our like our boxes and like a string the house is a mess just like two bros in the house just just pulling out our hair just like we're gonna make a song and then yeah we we're like 20

12:08songs in at this point and we write like you know the the start of stargazing and it was just like at the time another song that we wrote and we sort of like pushed to the side and we had our close friend and collaborator jesse fink there at the time and i don't think any of us i'd be lying if i said like that first sort of like cut of it any of us thought it would be this massive magical special song we thought the song was good but yeah it wasn't yeah what it is now um and then yeah not long after me and pete just went back into the studio and i think like my a and r was right as joe

12:41had messaged pete like what's going on with this song and we're like damn let's just like crack it open and and see what could happen and yeah we played for a while unsuccessfully with it um and then yeah landed on on where it is do you have any early versions of it then yeah i have an early version can i have one thing on the writing front it was the last night that we wrote we just wrote the chorus to stargazing and we were checking out the next morning and we're like hey we should wake up early and like just write verses to the song yeah so we literally the morning we checked out there maybe wrote the verses in the pre to the song yeah and we didn't think anything of it there was

13:13actually another song remember that song holding on oh we were like this is the one from the camp we thought that was the one and i remember going right back to my apartment afterwards and working on hold on and we were like dude this is the one and then we ended up opening up stargazing in the studio yeah i think the best part of my best my favorite writing memory of that song was like when we were writing the hook like you had to take my heart don't break it love me to my bones oh this time i wasted you all right there oh yeah and then it was like you and uh like no word like intertwine his souls and we were we were there for like so long like what is that word

13:48and jesse's like at this point like just broed out like probably drunk too much tequila night before he's like on the sofa like this he's like wow what if it's just like stargazing wow and like maybe we're like dude wait there's something in there and then we we threw it in and it was just like it's pretty fire so yeah crazy the title of this song it was funny though because jesse and i always thought the song was gonna be called all along yeah you were right there all along

14:20and then i was like no it's called target okay that's probably better i fought you for that as well i actually think the first rough i have is called no i think it's called all along i think the session low key is called all along hold on 24 malibu camp 24 it was called all along oh my gosh isn't that crazy how early do you have of this song the earliest i have because we didn't bounce one out at malibu like we didn't have a bounce even when we left the camp it wasn't until miles and i just went to the studio a few days later to work on it and i think the earliest i have is actually

14:55called and then then i called it a rough of stargazing but actually in the beginning it was like a totally different vibe yeah in like i'll just play you a quick version of the rough it was just a picking guitar time stood still just like a photograph you made me feel like this will last forever looking in your eyes i see my whole life it's crazy

15:29so then we like got to the goods but until then it was just that picking guitar there was no intro yeah and like there was honestly so many things that happened after we wrote the song on the production front that honestly kind of convinced us that it was something special yeah like the

15:59piano drone for example that was that was that was when i became a believer that was a turning point like so i'd phone my best friend and my brother out so we were like all in the room and me and people are figuring this song out and like you know when the song feels like has something but like you're not exactly sure what that is it just was lost and then a big thing and it'll probably come up a few times in this meeting like pete has a lot of like just trust me moments and it's like everything about you says don't trust him but the more we go the more convinced and so he's like no

16:31like dude what if like it's just like dun dun dun dun and i was like i don't get it then he he put it into the track played out through through the playback speakers and i was like oh it felt electric oh there's something in this now but it was like you know a lot of the time as an artist and producers have crazy ideas and like nine times out of ten like they don't work um and that's nothing to do with talent it's just the the process of making music and could i'm always so close to

17:02what the production is i love being with pete as we're doing it it's like there's a bit of ego in it it's like if it's not my idea then like what we do but i feel like the longer i've worked with pete the more i've trusted him but there's this there's this weird moment where they're doing something in their ears and you're like you don't know what they're going to but like when you see pete just like yes i grabbed him by the shoulder i was like i like i've got no headphones on so i'm just like okay i trust and yeah that was a turning point the drone turned the song around totally i think i we just went full steam ahead and we we cut so many vocals and we just wanted to get it

17:36perfect what's the setup when you're recording so at the malibu camp we kind of like kind of we're on a writing trip right now and it's kind of the same we have a desk kind of like this and we have a neumann u87 that we cut everything with miles on and we have a little apollo we have some speakers like a bunch of guitars and like a midi controller so it's pretty bare bones i feel like we've always felt most comfortable kind of like in a living room setting yeah where it doesn't feel like a lot of pressure in the studio like these studios are amazing we like to come here to finish but like in the creation stage it's really nice to feel comfortable yeah so it's just kind of like a pretty bare bone situation i would say and we're not sponsored by airbnb but like 90 of our songs are airbnb

18:10absolutely like ed once said something about like rooms have songs in them and like the more they've been used to make songs like the less songs exist in that room and you know it seems like fallacy but for me it's like there is something to going somewhere where music hasn't been created and like just being part of it and just seeing what lands and i think that we've always had success just booking random spots totally and bringing a mobile setup with us and you know we've got into like a swing of it where it's like we can literally turn anywhere into a studio in like half an hour yeah

18:41yeah that's a great idea though the vibe of the airbbs too it's like we could be having breakfast and there's been so many times we like written a song over breakfast someone's like cooking eggs and someone's playing the guitar and then it's like oh wait what was that and then by the time breakfast is done you have a song it feels informal and i feel like that's kind of always been our our creative process and yeah god i mean i just love the idea that you know you haven't even had breakfast yet and you've got a song on the go yeah so cool the best is when like a writer goes to sleep and it's just me and pete like should we try let's just get one real quick 50 50 um and yeah like you pick

19:16like it's i think the beauty of like living in with the people that you're writing with is crazy because like songs for me are it's not a nine to five job so why should we create them in a nine to five environment it's like they might come at 3 a.m they might come slap bang in the middle of the day it's just like always having somewhere accessible at any time in any place to make music is the best way for us 100 really interesting what more should we hear now um but that's kind of the rough maybe i'll just start walking through kind of like then so then we left from the rough and then we go into the

19:46studio and we it was funny because kind of like right towards the end of we always knew the chorus was amazing like on the production front we kind of had built that out and then joe edison and our at rca our homie was like hey what's up with this song like can we finish this song we hadn't opened it up and so then miles and i got on facetime we do a lot through facetime on the production front because i live in la and he lives in london and so i just like facetime miles like hey let's figure this out and so we kind of started piecing together like the intro bit and i think from the beginning even like from my home and solo we always have been big on when this song comes on

20:20you want to be able to recognize what tune it is and for us like having a motif yeah it's always kind of been our our thing so we we started putting together a motif for the song it just kind of felt like an urgent opening you know so like let's see what we have here we recorded all these live pianos and this is the drone and the piano here i think there's actually two pianos layered here this is this is one just like a bass

20:55a bass octave notes and then the chords on top of it this is a piano at my at my manager's studio at mega house in in la every song literally in every song i don't even know what kind of brand it is it's just such a vibe it records amazing and then this is the drone that kind of changed the game it's funny because there's no snare drum in this song it's just four to the floor

21:29and this accents that and so it creates like a rhythm and urgency in the track so and then we took the post chorus yeah which is this just an acapella which came after the second chorus always but then when we wanted to make the song more urgent yeah we shoved it on the front let's put it on the front it's important to mention we both come from like live backgrounds and we always like approach a song from a sense of like if you're

21:59standing i don't know at the front of the o2 or you stand at the front of wembley or even at the front of a pub gig it's like you know those moments where as a fan the lights were off and you hear that first note it's like what do you want to feel where do you want to be 100 i think because we both came from that background it's like it was pretty obvious to us that like if like i kept imagining myself standing in front of a venue i'm like what would excite people to hear and that's why our motifs like we put so much pressure on them because we're like we want people to be like oh it's that song like straight away which is funny though because i feel like every motif

22:31we have in the intro or something has come from a post chorus that we repurposed to the beginning of the song yeah like miles said it's just like an urgency thing um so we have the pianos there i there's not much on these pianos it's like a little bit of compression i love the uad sparks plugins they're like a suite from uad that is you don't need an apollo to run them on you just need the internet and uh ever since i downloaded uad sparks has been amazing so we just have some of that on there a little bit of decapitator on the piano a favorite plugin love the decapitator and then so we have

23:02the pianos there and then we also just put these strums into the intro as well that's some pete's taylor that we use on every song we use on every song it's not changed the string in how many years i bought this guitar in college in 2011 and never changed a string i don't know how it works i swear i'm just like please never break my career is over but on this one again i have a bunch of um uad sparks plugins honestly so much of what we do is organic so like

23:34the source sound is so important and i use like a pencil mic it's a soyuz mic to do all the acoustic guitars that i love what is this and it's one that's a little noise um takes out some of the noise and then a lexicon reverb also uad sparks but yeah just together with the intro we just have the guitar the piano and honestly just the the vocals do so much and that was when we were like okay we have something engaging in the front yeah yeah i think what's really good is that between me and pete like he's always found a chain to find warmth

24:10and it's like it's really hard to build warmth in the environments that we choose to record in so it's like a like it's nuanced what he does on the back end but it makes a big difference you know which i've always found super impressive okay one last thing on the intro actually there's some reverse energy here so this is a reverse piano going right into the verse it just creates this like suction and then there's also a reverse crash and those i feel like make a big difference because you're like okay where are we going

24:41and then it just goes to a guitar and vocal i will just say i feel like for miles when i met him he was doing all of these like freestyles and stuff on tiktok and it was just like him and an acoustic guitar so for me as a producer when we started working together i was like there's so much magic in that he has such an amazing tone

25:12and voice that to me it's like the production is it's never like oh look at this production it's like supporting the song with miles on it so like even this verse how long is this verse it's like 15 seconds just acoustic guitar in him but the guitar is like a rhythmic it's giving a lot of energy yeah you know we recorded these at the airbnb too and i remember just being like the recording wasn't perfect but the vibe was so right i've tried to re-record these guitars but it was just it was just the way it was so that was just the verse just that and then we knew we wanted it to build so in the pre-chorus the kick drum the classic miles four to the floor

25:52that's my just trust me moment whenever we get to free i'm like hear me how about a four to the floor

26:02so yeah we just have a classic four to the floor um in the pre-chorus not even a big kick drum there's nothing on this kick drum i don't think there's literally nothing on this it's just a great sound and so again i feel like this song is actually pretty minimal yeah it's the vocals the guitars and then we bring in the pianos and the stacks are huge another piano there in the pre-chorus

26:26some drums is the same kick drum across the whole no there's actually different so this this pre has a certain kick drum and then we add some more like a thicker kick in the chorus like a more stadium kick you know what i mean and every chorus in the song is actually different yeah so the first chorus drops out the second chorus is full on and then the last chorus is like stripped down that's what we do on all songs though it's like 100 it's always trying to fight like instead of just copying pasting choruses how can we make each one feel special yeah i think as a listener it can get super

26:56repetitive to to have the exact same chorus so it's like how do we make each one have their own life and do different things to serve the song because you want the melodies to repeat you want the words to repeat in the choruses but like if you can make it feel a little different with the production we always try to kind of lean that way this is a funny little vibe so before the chorus we have these haze these classic haze you hold me close don't let me go and uh it was funny because his brother's in the room my manager hayley is like on the couch there was usually this isn't the way but like usually there

27:28was like a bunch of people just kind of hanging out over finishing the song and then i just like turn around to his brother and my manager i'm like hey you guys want to do some haze on this track and this is them on the haze performance this is our group haze yeah so it's fun like now on the credits you can see like his brother and my manager like on the performance credits which is really fun if you let pete do a one two three or a hey or something he will do it that's like my my kick in the pre is pete going how about one two three or hey it's just like energy guys talking about my dad

28:05leaving i don't need hey anyway so after the haze we drop into chorus one no kick drum and the piano drone comes in for the first real time that's also the first time we have a couple new elements

28:36for the first time so we also did a bunch of live claps yeah with the gang that were in the room and layer with some sampled claps so there's a ton of claps here like you can see all of all of these claps are making up each clap and these are just how many claps do you think let's see all right two four six eight nine live claps but then you also got to times it by the eight people in the room exactly yeah yeah wow so and then eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen clap tracks which is like

29:07you know sometimes like not all of them are very loud though and like for the organicness of it we want like the feeling of the room to be involved and it feels like a live show you know so the claps come in on the one which give a ton of energy that's a new element and then the piano drone so i'll just play the claps and the piano they're like panned randomly to make it feel in the room as well 100 so let's see so this is chorus one we have the piano drone

29:35we have a low piano where the claps at

29:41huge claps not a lot going on again and we have two we have two bases we love a sub bass like under a live every time we're like in the throes he's like what if we put a so this is this is the sub bass it's a it's just a serum gorgeous thing that i that i love it's just called bass subway um with a little bit of a kickstart just to give it a little bit of the pulsingness this is like we side chain almost every sub that we almost especially since we do four to

30:11the floor in the song it's just now it's like a pulsing bass this is just a sub this really helps like in the live yeah makes it feel huge so we have the sub bass just doing like a sustained quarter note um that's not side chaining your subs what are you doing it's so important man because it brings so much movement from something that's usually so static 100 and uh the movement is what makes this song because like even if you just sat on your own listening to it it's like you can't help but nod along and yeah even though you don't hear it you

30:42feel it and i think that's 100 a lot of what you do it's like not heard it's felt and it's really strange i feel like dan nigro has done a really good job of that where like sometimes the productions are grander but everything kind of just feels like it fits and it's not doing too much like kind of getting out of the way and so we have this sub bass but we also have a live bass

31:01doing eighth notes and this is literally just there's only a little bit of compression there's this uh preset called bass squeeze that i love on the uad sparks x 1176 compressor so the bass the live bass and the sub bass are doing this

31:17we have the piano now we have our epic drone and we have the claps that's all that's going on and the strums and then after that we were like okay we wanted to build after the first part of the chorus and then we have a proper four to the floor going here

31:45and this all sounds completely produced and mixed are you doing that as you go doing it as i go yeah it's funny early on the first ep i like mixed the first ep and i feel like for me as a producer i want to hear it the way i i hear it in my head so along the way i'm always mixing and like even on my master bus maybe this is getting too nerdy but on the master bus i have uh hitsville eq master chain and a the god particle and there's this preset that's just says mix just sounds better

32:15and it literally does just sound better i honestly like is that your settings that's all no this is a preset but then i tweak it a little bit right you know like i tweak some of the highs i take some of the mids and as i'm going i like love to put this master chain on yeah because a lot of that ends up going into the mix printing it in the mix like i'll turn off a little bit of the limiter on the god particle and then i'll keep the mix uh this this preset right here so i'm trying to mix as i go yeah and what do you know what that actually does can i play it ab yeah that would be great

32:48it take my heart this is no it's really cute master love me to my and that's with it on

33:00this is off

33:05it honestly makes it a little bit brighter yeah yeah and it and it takes each band of frequency and does a little bit on each of them you know so yeah i always want to leave i'm a big day bounce person like if we work on a song for the day i'm going to send it to you when we're done and i want you to play in your car and i want it to sound good yeah so we're just mixing as we go um and then and then so after that first half of the chorus then we bring back the rhythmic guitars

33:35okay so then there's a lot more guitars happening when the when the chorus comes in and everything starts really rocking we have our rhythmic guitar from the verse

33:45and who is playing the guitars i'm playing the guitars so we have the picking guitars and the rhythm guitars and then we have four strums just to make it feel huge 100 and then what is this guy let's see oh yeah these are more so there's like 10 guitars at this point

34:01honestly when they're all layered together it kind of feels like a wall of sound with the guitars and since there's not a lot else going on in the production it's kind of nice to feel like wow there's just a bunch of people on stage like jamming to this song yeah definitely um so that's kind of what happens in the second half of course let's see what else i'll just mute the instrumental we have a big swell crash yeah into these which has kind of become a part of like this a big part of the song oh oh we have this little transition moment we do this is a

34:33a thing i've been using for so many years like an orchestral swoosh i just have labeled it now a transition but it it honestly does it does a thing that i just want to happen which is like here's the chorus we're getting to it and with what's it created by this i don't even i don't even know where i got this you definitely must have ripped off splice yo i i for sure i've for sure got it off just gonna do a tape note so it's not lying i love spice i'm not i hate it i love it i hate it

35:08it's like we do finding him find his stare on splice is maybe the worst part of my life

35:15do you like this one no it's funny now we're doing now with with the miles we've done so much together i've like curated the sounds that i like and keep in the folder and this just happened to be one i use this on solo too yeah you did this the same thing so i and i've been pretty common though we've kept so many elements of songs we've done 100 them over in sounds wise even this bass

35:40this is a one-shot bass that i love it's called the dip bass also a splice one shot the transient on this base just does something for me like with the kick drums that we cut in the world that we're in this specific bass just like kind of punches through so there's a few things that we try to keep consistent in the world especially like in its album time there's a lot of through lines even like on the processing of the vocals and and master chains even the instrument and like the choice and like not to play on records because like yeah i play guitar competently definitely there's

36:10like it's so strange like pete plays a guitar in a way that i prefer to hear on a record so there's been so many times i've recorded a part and people play the same part but it might just be his voicings might be different or whatever it is and it's it's like he's become a part of me if that makes sense and so yeah it's been really awesome to like let my ego go and go i could play all of these parts and just go out totally the way in which he plays is is every i think every guitarist like has their own signature to how they play but i just prefer how his sounds on record yeah and and

36:43and obviously coming to terms with that but that has has that freed you up so you're even more relaxed oh it's it's amazing though it's the best feeling because you know there are times where we have more complicated parts and songs or you know things that need to be cut on three or four different mics to get the right sound and sit in there going again it's like so freeing because when i'm in the vocal booth it's the exact same piece again so when we switch roles i'm just like again i think miles loves that role now he's like yeah do one more day great one more take take out the bottom me on this one no it

37:18is true because miles is an amazing musician so like he can play all these parts but like now we're just in a flow and i think that's another thing honestly like with the trust between an artist and a producer just like having that you know rapport of being like no you can do this and it's fine there's like no ego in the room we're just like trying to make the best song possible and i think you work towards that and where we're on facetime so much and we're on the road it's like i'll literally be on sound movers which is it's basically a platform i could hear live what he's doing and in uh in the door that we're using um and have him on facetime and it's just like i can't record a good i know

37:52guitar take on a bus in the middle of ohio yeah so it's like i'm just with pete going through it so it's like it's super awesome whether we're together or apart it's like we're always in the studio together so yeah which is amazing that's how like the first records we ever did were made like my home and solo i remember just like hopping on facetime for a long time and figuring it out that's why we love this studio like yeah i'll cut vocals here and pete will be at home and we'll just cut all day long and then you know we've got a great guy and jake who shout out jake being on a lot of the tracks and you know we'll just work so fluidly around the world yeah um there was another thing here let's see okay so

38:24this is the bigger stadium kick that we layered in the chorus just like massive kick obnoxious kick mixed with the one in the pre

38:37okay and this is this is the real sauce right here this is like i record most of the uh shakers and tambourines live with these two that i have every song every almost every every song they just record so perfectly this is the shaker take so with the kick drum and then the tambourine loop the tambourine just gives the kick so much transient and again let's see what i have on these let me just uh this is a capital plugin that i absolutely love a uad sparks capital chambers plugin

39:10just a little bit of reverb on there so it feels feels like there's some some room to it and some some legs with the shaker now we're just like rocking and rolling there's not a lot going on there we actually layered a snare to on the floor so with the massive just the transient again the transients are so important sometimes kick drums can get lost in the mix if there's not like the attack on it and i feel like the tambourine the shaker and the snare on the floor to the floor as well just kind of like

39:41pokes through more so that's pretty much all that's going on in the chorus again there's not a ton it's like oh i will let's go into the vocals real quick because i feel like the first day we ever met we were like yo miles what if you try like stepping away from the mic oh we call it miles sauce or it's like we already have a lead and we have doubles where he's like this with the mic like a normal you know normal take and then we have these miles sauces where he moves around the mic and like shouts it more yeah and in this song so here's the lead because we do what do we do we do lead we do doubles

40:13and we do a left right pan um and then we'll do and then we'll do the miles however many it takes to get it right i feel like in this song we chose the musical parts we wanted and then doubled down on them so like with the vocal for example this is the lead take my heart don't break it amazingly amazing and then the doubles coming in left and right you were right there now i'm going to bring the mile sauces that gives so much of the sauce so like how many mile sauces do we have on this one there's four

40:52where he's just screaming i actually have these are all of my chains that i that i save when i like them and i have a mile sauce chain the first day we ever met it's called the mile mile strong background vocals and it's honestly just decapitator 1176 and valhalla is it possible to hear that dry yes absolutely absolutely absolutely the chain god bless your ears that's actually it there's not

41:23usually i'll have like uh plugins on the individual vocal tracks but this is completely dry

41:31you can hear like the room love me to my bone and then this is this is this is you can keep it in for reality but it perfections make perfection this is with the sauce again i'm i'm like i'm i'm doing more i should get back to be fair that's a really hard note that's a high that's a high jump and you smashed it i'm just slamming the drive here on the uh on the decapitator and so this is now wet just feels like thick

42:07also your voice just has like a a deep kind of character to it and so distorting his vocals on the on the mile sauces are huge let's see we also have low dubs here yeah i get down there he you know he gets i think you have a three octave range i do you do yeah yeah so all the vocals together seem huge so if i take out the mile sauces it makes such a difference

42:42that's without them for us it all started at the point like we make like fundamentally it's pop music whatever you call it pop or whatever it is but we always wanted to keep it raw and natural and we found like by doing these vocal layers it makes it less polished and that's even in our choice of microphones like big time we tried quite a few mics at the start but everything was so clean and it's like a lot of those i'm not sure we did it on this track but a lot of the mile sources or bvs that we do we'll do on the sm7 just because it sounds raw on a track called solo that we did we was like on

43:15an iphone yeah a closet yeah and it's just like how can you keep the scratch and the texture and what we do 100 really interesting oh can i show one more plug-in sorry yeah this is this is a big time sauce i haven't seen a lot of people use this plug-in i stole it from a friend it's called it's made by leapwing dyno dy none it's a multi-band compressor that i actually put on the master on the bus of all of the vocals so like this is a chain for miles um we have a couple compressors i use the dyno audio on there decapitator and the capital chambers i love the capital chambers on his

43:50vocal it's just like sounds it's like my favorite reverb for him but the dyno audio is going over all of those vocals so this is it with it and then this is without it it's subtle it just brings out the transience yeah anyways that's like the last kind of layer for the really interesting so so interesting um let's have a blast of the ending and then we'll move

44:22on to the next amazing amazing love me to my bones all this time i've wasted you were right there all along

44:49little outro chorus that little outro always wind me up fantastic always winds you up yeah there's a little part in the comp where you get a breath just before i take i know i only caught me after it was on spotify the rest of my life it's so interesting to hear that you know there's something that still frustrates you about it because i was going to wrap up and say so that's how you write a billion streaming song but you're still hearing this tiny thing that annoys you that's so funny you know what someone said to me that i love they said arts never finish it's abandoned

45:22it's like at some point you got to let it go yeah you know what i mean so like the breath the breath just lives in there forever my dad left brilliant we're going to take a quick break and then the next song we're going to look at is my mess beautiful

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46:47that's better running a small business means i wear lots of hats when i put on my hiring hat i can count on linkedin hiring pro to make it easy linkedin hiring pro helps manage my hiring workflow puts my job post in front of a unique network of professionals and matches me with the best candidates for my business i can also share my job with my network no other job site lets me do that no wonder most small businesses say they'd use linkedin hiring pro again hire right the first time post your job for free on linkedin today at linkedin.com quality the next song we're going to

Fan questions on songwriting and TikTok

47:24look at is my mess but before we start looking at that i've got to ask you a couple of questions we've had through from patreon one is from sammy w who says hi i love your songs your lyrics and songwriting seem so heartfelt and vulnerable to me and they ought to talk about relationships and very personal things do you ever have to navigate over sharing or being selective about what you want to tell the world in your music oh that's a great question isn't it yeah i do uh i think it's easier to

47:54share when you're writing with people who allow you to be vulnerable because you've already done half the job in sharing with you know a bunch of people i feel like it's definitely difficult because they're all i think i mean yeah every single one of my songs is a real experience or a real relationship or you know a real circumstance which has happened and so sometimes that i guess awareness of it being a real thing happens like after the song's out and you get messages from family and

48:26friends like oh you're talking about this or you're talking about that and that's when it really hits you like oh i've put this thing out into the world um i think when it's happy stuff is easy when it's some of the saddest stuff or some of the hardship is it's definitely been a battle but i think it's always like you know the fight for real music and real art to exist you sort of have to put yourself out there on a plate and you know i choose to do it because it's sort of the reason i started making music in the first place yeah you've got to put yourself on the line yeah uh lucas friedman asks any advice for creatives wanting to use tick tock as a platform for accelerating their music career

49:01oh you know what i think with tick tock if you see it as an accelerant for your music career you won't have fun doing it if you see it as an opportunity to connect to people and find your community that's when you subsequently accelerate your music career so i'd say you think of tick tock as an opportunity to share your art with the world but also to find people who are like-minded and can learn something from you and you from them and uh it becomes a lot more enjoyable experience and yeah you find a lot more success doing that way and it's far more sustainable yeah because in a

49:34way i mean you put up videos of yourself on youtube and stuff like that when you were doing covers and you know that tick tock maybe wasn't in around at that point but it's a similar kind of thing and that's one of the reasons why you're doing it 100 absolutely social media has played such a massive part and you know just between me pete and my manager eric like we were able to have like nine million monthly listeners before i ever signed a deal and so it goes to show you could really start and build a career you know with with just your phone and and good friends you know

50:05and a lot of hard work but i think that's an amazing place that we live right now that you you can do it yourself yeah and listening to you both talk about writing stargazing it seems there are two key factors in how you approach things and the connection is fundamental you immediately started talking about coming up with something that would connect with people and you can link that to being 13 years old in the pub um and intention as well writing with intention and thinking about what you want each thing to actually achieve and what you want it to do to the listener

50:38when they're listening yeah absolutely i think connection and intention is sort of the the heart of music you know is like i go by the philosophy like if you put out a song that isn't completely you if it's successful you're gonna hate having to play it for the rest of your life um if it isn't you're gonna hate the fact that you ever put it out but if you continue to strive just to do things that you love whether it goes well or not you'll always be proud of it and i think that that's sort of like what pushes us to do what we do yeah and that connects nicely to the next song we're going to look at

51:10my mess um because it couldn't be more you miles you know in terms of you putting your life out there yeah this was a a really tough and easy track to write tough in the emotional sense easy at that you know it came together in like an hour um it was weird it it was it started over two days it was like the night before it was me pete and and and a few other writers that are on the song and sam romans who's a an amazing songwriter had started to talk to me sort of about childhood and life and stuff and then

51:42ended up like massively over sharing um like massively um and then it became like this huge trauma dump session which was like really cathartic in a way um and you know that sort of just stopped there and left there and uh the next day it was sort of like coming towards the end of the camp and we'd got a mandolin like none of us could play mandolin uh but pete was like dude we should get a mandolin and like so you know joe aria and all went out and found a mandolin in the middle of

52:13oslo somehow um and we've we're like halfway through another song and pete's just like i'm just gonna go inside and fiddle with the mandolin and like he comes out and he plays you know the the riff of of my message and like two things happened firstly i was like how the hell did you learn to play mandolin in 10 minutes and the second thing was like this is really sick and like instantly off that like the melody like i'm quite melody forward like i always find them quite quickly and quite easily and the melodies of the song just starts spurting out of me and uh when we got to

52:46sort of like the hook we had the just like melodically and then uh sam was like why don't we talk about some of the stuff that you were like talking about last night and you know between that and sort of like being in bed the night before going through therapy notes and stuff that i'd written from years ago it just the song flowed out so naturally and it was just like a really beautiful moment and i think we all felt super connected because the stories behind it like we discussed in such depth the night before and yeah the song just sort of grew out of nowhere fascinating right we need to hear a blast of

My Mess

53:21the monster of the monster let's hear a blast of this i'm in doors blades of flying i was born into a fractured family where workers start a whore

53:42lost my tone when i spoke my piece yeah he grabbed my shirt and bruised my cheeks said a man had to go toe to toe to toe with a boy 13 oh sorry i'm so goddamn incisive i was raised you said do as i'm tall and i hate the way that i'm so like this

54:13i'm still learning to walk on my own just a little taste of my mess there which is the opening track to the album and in effect i guess the title track as well because the phrase my mess my heart my life is in that song yeah so i mean you told us how it came about he pete learned the mandolin in 10 minutes and and hey presto you know it's so funny it was uh also just like a little context on the song we were in oslo because miles

54:43was on tour with ed and he had a couple weeks to write and it was like the one week that oslo had a had a massive heat wave so there was no ac in the house all of us were sweating that day specifically one of our friends had to go to the hospital it was like getting serious so we were like on survival mode because of the heat so we ended up writing the song on the grass in the shade and i think like that setting was so important yeah you were you sharing everything the night before and then like everything kind of happening the way it was yeah joe grabbed a mandolin and i don't know how to play the mandolin but like i just know music a little bit so i was able to find

55:16this riff and i remember going into the house while they were recording another song we had written and i was kind of like just jamming and found this little thing that i liked and our friend jesse came and he's like dude stop playing more stuff like we can't write more today it's so hot and then miles comes out he's like what is that and then the song just like this is one of my favorite songs we've ever written in terms like the experience of it so yeah i'll just kind of pop into the track a little bit um all of these guitars were done i mean all these mandolins and stuff were done in oslo at the airbnb under the excruciating heat it was so bad we just how hot is hot i mean it was like 35. oh

55:50really yeah you guys talking like celsius i don't know what that is like it was hot you know what i mean i'm just thinking of somebody who lives in la yeah it was hot no it was like 35 37 but no ac and the windows like we were in so the windows were just like creating a heat vacuum and there was like the water water maybe like a couple miles ahead i was just reflecting everything into the house so inside the house the thermostat was like it was like reading like 50 it was like obscene it was it was insane but like somehow we recorded the whole the vocals and the mandolin and i feel like with this

56:21song like we didn't do any tracking with the vocals afterwards we were so in the energy and the vibe of the song that i remember this recording process everyone's like let's just get it the magic is right here i mean like the the foundation of this song like from a production perspective is the mandolin

56:42it's a little sloppy but it's just like live and real

56:49and then all of us got around and did these wild stomps in the room like six of us yeah that was in reference to the lyric as well like slamming doors it just like we wanted we just wanted to feel like you're in it if that makes sense it was like uh baits are flying slamming doors and it was just like wanting to put people in the like to be able to visualize it and feel it but those claps are funny there was like six or seven of us around a mic yeah and it was just like stomping on all

57:21kinds of random things one of them is a butt cheek one of them is a butt cheek griff clausen's butt cheek

57:31facts we have evidence i've got a video we actually have evidence of that yeah on the stomps i just have a little bit of ssl compression and can you solo the butt cheek it's in the other ones you know what i mean i'm not going to expose my boy like that you know what i mean um so yeah i mean most most of the first part until until really the chorus is just miles telling his story on the mandolin this is another one i feel like we like let's get out of the way of the song this is like such that to me it's like the heart of the album and for what he's sharing about his life like we

58:03wanted really the lyrics to kind of like shine the most so it's really miles on the mandolin for the first verse until those stomps come in also one of my favorite performances from aisles like vocally so at the chorus we start to kind of open up a little

58:46bit more instrumentally we have a left and right of the mando just doing the strums with the main mandolin here those are those together let's see what i have on the mandolin honestly kind of the same like 1176 compressor with the uad sparks capital chambers plug-in that i love and then let's see we have some acoustic guitar strums classic all pencil mic yeah all pencil mic so you use mike and then we have our lovely the bass that we love to use the dip the tip one

59:18shot bass and then my friend khan played the live piano this this we did after the fact in my studio in la we love a live piano yeah like again the first chorus kind of a dropout as well we just wanted the lyrics to shine so all those pieces together oh sorry i'm so goddamn decisive doubles on the vocal doubles on the vocal no miles sauces yet no we get to some serious sauce later yeah but like on an

59:50intimate song like this you know it's just like you got to do what it calls for so just lead and doubles here and i have my dyno audio on the bus again with a little bit of soothe i love this preset called ds and that's it it just like keeps some of the harshness away um and then let's see coming out of this chorus i wanted to like kind of you know evolve the song pre-dsa this song pre-ds

1:00:27all right yeah making those decisions about singles and doubles i mean how do you judge that i feel like it's a case-by-case basis like for a big anthem like stargazing it's like let's give them the goods let's like stack this to the sky this one is a really intimate we always double at a minimum a minimum for sure especially hooks i don't think the single hook i've done that's not at least a double hundred percent um even on tracks like on the album like grandma's place which are acoustic ones we we double hooks always just because i know it just makes you feel like you're entering that

1:00:58section of the song yeah yeah 100 and so then we start to build a little bit and i love this rhythm and vibe of verse two i'll just kind of kind of walk through some of the things we're doing here i really love this kind of groove between the four on the floor i have a brush snare yeah and is that that all in the box or this is this is all in the box these are like live samples that i that i kind of spiced together because we're in also we didn't have a drum kit yeah i was thinking you're just like

1:01:31kind of doing with which i feel like often leads to something dope i don't think it's just being in us though i think me and the box have a funny relationship yeah i've stepped out the box a few times and i've not liked it right i feel like there's a certain control that you lose outside the box and don't get me wrong we always put elements that are outside the box a hundred percent um but i feel like because of the music i make there has to be a certain level of like snappiness to it um to get the sort of desired like impact and um especially when it comes to drums even if we have

1:02:03live drums yeah there's box drums on there because yeah we just like to keep things tight and then we use other live elements like pianos or guitars to give you the flexibility even on this song we have like live strings but we always do live percussion yeah like this shaker which is my lucky shaker i wish i had it on me it's like this yellow double shaker vibe but we have that this snare we have the brush snares with a kick drum and the mando that's kind of like the heartbeat of the

1:02:34verse two and then i'm also doubling the mando thing with the guitar

1:02:42honestly nothing on here except for the capital chambers that's this in the mando

1:02:50and then i bring in a little bit of banjo which i love this guy six string banjo yeah who's who's playing the six string bun i'm i'm playing this

1:03:03and was that not done in oslo that was not done we didn't have a banjo on it so like the bad one but it was a real banjo i don't know how to play that now miles will sometimes be like yo just do more on the mandolin i'm like that's all i had this song is all i had on the mandolin bro so those are those are kind of the core elements and we have a bass kind of coming in as well in verse two so everything's rocking here we have live piano from khan

1:03:33like all the elements are live really except for the drums and then the percussion is live yeah we drop out on the second chorus also but it's bigger we have more vocals

1:03:50oh the vocals are actually really fun here because miles kind of um it was it was cool he was like orchestra there were like six of us or seven of us which usually we don't write with that many people but because of the heat in oslo we went from two rooms to one room yeah and we were outside so everyone was it was just like a a fun a fun vibe but miles was kind of like orchestrating all these gang vocals and they start smaller so these are the gangs and then

1:04:33we have these o's coming in that i absolutely love thank you you're welcome

1:04:40i remember him just being like

1:04:43i feel like oh patterns are like yeah i just love o patterns if i could find a good o pattern to like support a melody for miles like he also phonetically o's sings so well for him and he's always going for the o pads so i like this is just all of the background gang vocals with the o's

1:05:13and then bringing in the doubles in the lead

1:05:19there's so much happening there i feel like that really elevated it when we when we went back up to us we repeat the chorus on the second chorus so with everything here's how it sounds yeah this is my favorite part of the song this is also a cool writing moment yeah we were we had

1:05:53everything except for the bridge and miles had always had the title for the album i messed my heart my life and i remember we were jamming on the grass and this is like when it just got chills everywhere all of us did and we like had this melody and he was just like this is my mess my heart my life and it just became this like anthem for the album and like just i don't know the hits so different yeah it was it was beautiful man it was yeah i think it was just it felt because we had been writing you know at this

1:06:25point two years for this album like between touring and everything this really did feel like when the album was done because i was like this just feels right and then yeah we went in and then we did we won take the bridge right we won't take the bridge yeah most of this is one take like yeah you know sometimes we'll cut a lot of vocals and then piece them together like do a proper comp but with this one it was like honestly the first time i like teared up when miles was cutting a vocal because just the message of the song and what he's sharing and the performance was incredible so like after that second chorus everything kind of drops out in a little interlude and then we start the build just

1:07:05demand out first this is my miss my heart my life this is my miss my heart my life this is my miss my heart my life

1:07:35i just kind of want to walk through some of these elements this is like my one of my favorite kind of elements we have all these like ebos going on the ebos the ebos i remember on facetime and you're like dude we need ebos in the bridge i didn't know what the term for an ebo was i've used them but i never knew i could i was like we need the things like and you'll hear all of these we kind of start with this first one and then more mandos come in i start doing a picking pattern on the mando here

1:08:10oh the amount it takes to get that done was hilarious

1:08:18so all of these ebos are kind of creating this atmosphere yeah we both grew up like listening to bonniver so right ebos are big at the time like i was really hot on um is it anchor by um i could find it on my phone no for more no very more it's really big on over more and just atmosphere yeah ebos are like i really wanted atmosphere because i love the way that they introduce them in their music we also our friend lily does a lot of strings on on a lot of these songs

1:08:48and so we brought her in to do some strings as well here the strings and the ebo

1:08:56kind of like just emotional tremolated

1:09:09we wanted everything to just be building we have these kind of stronger electric guitars here and are the strings recorded in l.a yeah in l.a at my studio

1:09:33it's just this euphoric moment and i love so much of this production how it builds like so organically we also have the pianos that are doing the build there's actually a ton of uh a ton of tracks on this one just because we wanted it to feel really live and on the vocal front too it's just miles like again this is a one take through the verse from him on the lead and then on the background vocals they start to come in slowly this is my miss my heart my life a few this is my miss my heart my life

1:10:06that's like my favorite moment in the song when everything is really building so af after this honestly also one of my favorite performances from him we just like did a last chorus yeah i was super raw and his voice kind of cracks and it just like fits the lyric and the energy so well

1:10:58yeah i don't think we would have got the vocals from this song had we not been at the end of a writing camp because 100 my vocals were exhausted which really matched the song yeah if i came in on fresh vocals i don't think it would have the same life it does 100 we actually even cut the song in a different key before so like the next day we're like maybe we should try it in a different key and it just didn't sound we recut it in the same key as well oh we did we did we recut the song twice and we always came back to like the og yeah yeah sometimes it's just that way you know there's been

1:11:32times where we totally recut songs and it's better but to us it's always about like capturing the right emotion and this was like the the rawest emotion for us yeah yeah well and it clearly works yeah amazingly well and and to think that all done on that one day you know we're not all everything but you know the main increase pretty much how it is now apart from 100 and piano and i feel like we always kind of do that we want to get the emotion of the song while we're in it and then we can finish the production later i think it's important to like miles is really good at this like moving quickly

1:12:03through things like when the magic is in the room you don't want to lose it you want to like capture it so we did everything we can to like capture it and then at the end we'll just go back and forth on the production and make sure it's like totally dialed yeah fantastic and and what a way to start the album it's really interesting i mean the whole story is really interesting to think that you had the phrase my mess my heart my life and it was there but it was almost as if it was waiting for this moment for it to be part of a song 100 it just paired up so beautifully because i felt like the album had

1:12:33everything but a pretty bow on it until the song sort of came about yeah i was also like when you had that because you've had that title for like a few months before like the process started and i was always like how are we going to write a song called my mess my heart my life and then it's just now it's my mess but the message is in there and it just like kind of fit perfectly as you're saying sometimes you can't plan those things out yeah most of the times you can't but i think almost that you had that title the thought process had begun and that conversation was waiting to happen to unlock those stories and thoughts and then the next day it's yeah it's like you were saying on the question he asked like

1:13:08most more than half of the work on the song was him just sharing the night before like we've been really close friends for a long time and i'd never heard some of these things and it was just like you had a moment of like i want to get this off my chest and then put it into the song for him and it was magical yeah fantastic yeah right we're gonna take another quick break and then the third song we're going to look at is dying day running a small business means i wear lots of hats when i put on my hiring hat i can count on linkedin hiring pro to make it easy linkedin hiring pro helps manage

1:13:42my hiring workflow puts my job post in front of a unique network of professionals and matches me with the best candidates for my business i can also share my job with my network no other job site lets me do that no wonder most small businesses say they'd use linkedin hiring pro again hire right the first time post your job for free on linkedin today at linkedin.com quality visible puts unlimited 5g data and hotspot in the palm of your hand powered by verizon's 5g network with no contract holding you back and for a limited time you can get visible for just 19

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Dying Day

1:14:33the next one we're going to look at is dying day the third selection maybe we'll have a blast the master now amazing and then find out how you created it locked in your eyes the world melts away

1:14:54sometimes i don't have words left to say at the end of it all when the light starts to fade

1:15:09it's just you and i in the mist that we made

1:15:17it's just you and i in the mist that we made all my breath is yours today and all my heart is yours to pray and all my time is yours to wait A little taste of Dying Day there by Miles Smith

1:16:00From My Mess, My Heart, My Life And it's interesting because it's such a delicate, beautiful song And yet there are those kind of heavy bits in it, aren't there? Quite heavy for the album as well 100% This song was just so fun to write I think we started this song also on the same Oslo trip that we did My Mess, My Heart, My Life And Dan Smith was in this session right Phil Plested, Phil Plested, our friend Yeah, so we'd started this song and like At a writing camp it's fun because everyone there is like

1:16:30So, everyone I invite to a writing camp is just so involved in the project And so in love with the project But what's awesome is like It's probably the only area of music competition exists Yeah And Dan Smith was like there for this trip And we've done Nice to Meet You together And a bunch of other songs So we've worked a ton But he was definitely feeling like I want a song You can tell in his aura You can tell in his aura And so Also he was there second week Yeah So we were there two weeks He got there the second week And he came in like swinging

1:17:01So we'd like he'd start playing the keys for this song Which it was on initially Oh yeah And sometimes chords just really sparked something And yeah we just we fell in love with the keys And it just felt so emotional And then we started I think with the upper octave singing And found these beautiful melodies And saw the shape of the song And a bit like my mess It came together pretty quickly Yeah Yeah it was also It was funny Because we usually cut everything on Miles

1:17:32With the U87 Neumann that we love This was on SMB Because like there was two rooms So Miles was like bouncing between rooms Like cutting vocals And he like sits down And like all the vocals are from the SM7 This is the only one We're like And it has a cool vibe to it Yeah We're always fighting each other on that I'm like dude do it on that U87 I do it on the SM7 I think it's partially because on the SM7 I could just lay down He was literally like just sitting back so relaxed I remember like that moment I was like wow these are sounding amazing He's just chilling right now But yeah it is

1:18:03There are some heavier sounds in it And that was actually a big direction for Miles Like in the beginning It's such a beautiful song I was like let's just keep it like that Like let's keep the drums pretty Let's like keep everything pretty He's like yeah what drums Let's do something dirty And because like there are two falsettos and a lead It's really beautiful and kind of like magical And you know it floats And then like the drums kind of ground it in a really cool place So it was like a lot There's a lot of iterations to get to this It was a bit of a fight this song Totally Like we don't Me and Pete like We usually go back and forth in songs And we both have different ideas for it

1:18:35And like we usually meet in the middle ground But I think with this one like It was always meant to be the closing track And I think one thing that is a struggle When you make music is like How big do you go Right Before it sounds like too much like a movie soundtrack And you know there's no rules to music But there is like where it sits in a space You have to be super like careful with how you construct it But for this one it was just like Let's just go full throw everything that we both know out of song

1:19:07It's like the last song in the album And yeah it was just really fun to like Have that little fight and then both land on like For sure Let's just send it Yeah let's just send it We got live drums on this song Yeah Live strings There's so many Live horns We actually had my friend sing background vocals Yeah She's like at the very end There's this huge crescendo moment It's actually funny Because it was already big Yeah And then we were finishing the album in LA at Airbnb And then remember we spent like so much time On that last section in the bridge Yeah Yeah this one is Again it just starts with a guitar vocal

1:19:39Kind of classic And I'll just kind of play what that sounds like Another motif No surprise here Right in the beginning I just kind of want to solo the leads There's a left and a right I think it's so beautiful to have these two It started that way

1:20:10And there was no low Do you remember? It was actually a choice We flipped between the two Right And then we said Why not just do both And like I love the texture of these three together I think it sounds so beautiful Yeah The upper octave didn't feel strong enough The lower octave on its own Didn't feel delicate enough Yeah Which we've never done that in a song And I kind of I love how it turned out Can you solo each? Yeah yeah yeah So these are the These are the false This is one of the falsetto Again like he has crazy range

1:20:44So here's a double on the falsetto Then we put the lower octave on top of it So we just kind of Like that also took up a lot of space Kind of like sonically in the song So in the verse We really didn't need anything else And because it goes so heavy It's nice to like just have this intimate moment Like you don't know where the song's going It's just you and I In the midst of it Okay oh you know what's crazy

1:21:15We also did an electric guitar We did The song was originally on this electric guitar The whole song was The whole song was Yeah You even have the take Yeah this is the whole take So this is how we actually wrote the entire song Until we were like Okay let's put an acoustic guitar on it But this guitar kind of fades in Which I love so much Right here before the chorus And then we start to fade in the electric here

1:21:47It's just you and I In the midst of it Yeah and so we also added these Because we're like Okay we're going to go into a thing And we also dropped out on the one Yeah Which is the first time we've ever kind of done that Which is really cool And also this song is in 3-4 So like we don't have a ton of songs in 3-4 Yeah So this is just going into the hook And then it gets heavier here

1:22:27I will say We also We did some unique things on this song We did a vocoder actually I was obsessed with vocals He was just like Put a vocoder in there I used a vocoder in Sleeper Sounds It's the first time I've used a vocoder Oh yeah that's right And I was obsessed I was like I need it on this song It's so sick This is the vocoder This is a plugin called VocalSynth So this one we did some Miles Sauce on as well

1:22:59And then the leads The vocoder does so much Because it is chordal So it's playing the chords

1:23:30And it's doing like the third and the fifth And so just with all of those It just felt kind of like magical And our friend Kyle Who sometimes when we do the live drums So I'll play the program drums that we did That we ended up getting to Because they were a lot softer before Wait can I actually play the earlier I want to play how they were before They were super pretty Debut album Dying Day Okay this is what it was originally Really kind of mellower

1:24:12Yeah You know So then we had these drums here That are the program drums Ended up going a little bit harder And then the live drums are here Which added so much Just like air To the drums So here's them together Like the crashes on the hits

1:24:46And also the bass is doing something cool The bass is playing like chords as well Instead of just root notes It's actually doing a little bit of a chord here That's the electric guitar This is the bass This is a Hoffner bass actually It's from the 60s I love the Hoffner basses Cool mechanic style Exactly They're amazing These are actually doing the chords Instead of just the root notes And everything's a little distorted Like the guitars are crunchy too What do I have on these guitars?

1:25:16Oh yeah This is the Neural DSP Corey Wong archetype I love these This is the electric guitars We just did DI since we were in Oslo That's just raw And then with the archetype We just wanted to go for those kind of heavier sounds Even the bass is distorted And then what are these guys?

1:25:42More guitar layers And then we have live strings from Lily again Our friend So all together We just kind of wanted to send it Even in the first chorus Yeah Drops out I'm really interested in The way that you've done that

1:26:13Because You feel the heaviness But you don't let The heaviness obliterate everything else 100% Like it's really Distorted and quite gnarly But the way you've sat it in the mix How did you arrive? Was that easy? Freeman's a big part of that Did you have tried Our mixture Freeman was a big part of that This is the unmixed But we mix as we go Michael Freeman's mixed everything on the album He's just a friend And we are in a great workflow Traditional mixtures will want you to print all of the stems And send them individually With Michael

1:26:43I'll actually send the frozen session from where I left off And then he works from there And to us The mix is such a part of it As we go along We don't need someone to recreate it And Michael just understands that So I think to me It's really like balancing the drums and the vocals Because the drums can get really insane If you don't tame it And I think it's just kind of a level thing Honestly There was like nothing I'm not side chaining any of the drums To the vocals or anything like that It's just kind of Honestly a levels thing Yeah And these are the live drums Layering the live

1:27:14And the program drums I think was a really important thing So this is both And this is without There's just less air And I think the live drums were a big part of that But yeah to answer your question I think it's just a kind of Making sure that the vocals sit on top And don't get drowned out Yeah Which can be hard And also the bass Sometimes the bass can actually Sometimes when you solo And when you mute the bass It feels like there's way more room

1:27:45And I think because we distorted it so much It kind of became smaller And it allowed more room for the vocals to shine It's less of like a thumpy bass And it has more like treble I think that was a key part of it too It's like the product of a fight as well Because it's like This song especially I think it was a battle Because like I pushed it as far as I could In terms of like in the room Like can we just turn it off a bit more Can we turn them off a bit more Can we turn them off a bit more Until Pete was like We're done And it got

1:28:16That was like the right way to do it Because we pushed it so far At one point it was overbearing Yeah And then we sort of like Reeled it back in to find the middle ground Also the crashes You know They're so loud And there's so many on the hits Yeah Making sure that those are like DS'd and not like super in your face Where it feels like It's biting a little bit You know So yeah That's kind of like The breakdown of the chorus I want to hop to the bridge Because the bridge gets wild I want to just play The end of the bridge

1:28:46It was so funny Because we kind of had it As like a static Everything was kind of Staying the same in the post Until we got together And I want to just kind of Highlight a couple of things So our friend Deza

1:29:16We FaceTimed her When we were together We're like Hey we really would love Like a female Kind of like background vocalist On this And I remember she set A bunch of options And then Miles was like Can you do the third And a fifth And double them all And then I'd have to send Voice notes to Pete Like because she'd done it About five times And it'd be like Okay now can she get this And now I'd sing it And like just sing Like seven parts Like an octave below And just be like Send that to her Please please So many And it was funny Because we were just doing it Over like voice notes And she was sitting in her studio In her room Just like recording And then sending us files

1:29:47In real time So we were like Doing all these live horns And strings These are her vocals At the end Sounds amazing Yeah That last bit Where she does the harmonies And everything Yeah There are so many vocals here So many voice notes together

1:30:20Like there's probably 20 of her vocals there Just at the end Just for about Two seconds of music Yeah let's see how long Yeah literally Four seconds At the very end Everything just kind of climaxes And then we have live brass here On top of it It like kind of feels like It was a darker song And at the end You get this kind of like Triumphant Like euphoric Yeah Type of feeling Growing up going to church

1:30:51With my grandma Like the harmonies Are always informed Like by like church music And it's just like What a beautiful way To wrap up that song 100% And there's like loads of strings We really just threw All the paint at the wall Yeah With the brass and the strings And then there's like 10 miles vocals And then there's So many miles vocals And there's a super distorted guitar

1:31:23On this bridge somewhere Yeah Let's see where is it Oh yeah This guy That was so fun I remember tracking that These are all of the guitar tracks In the bridge So that with the strings And the brass And the female vocals At the end Just does something to me Yeah

1:31:59So that's like That's my favorite part Of the song I remember you tracking Those electric STI And just me In the background Yeah It's like More The peak just like Yeah And it's just this Beautiful intimate song And then And then So it goes to The mountaintop And then it drops Right off Which I love At the very end I think a big reason

1:32:34Why we wanted to add Electronic instruments Into this section And I remember referencing it During the write Is like When Mumford came back With the record I'd believe on it I just loved the fact That like The electric infusion Really worked And I don't know There was a little bit Of like How can we Make a song That you know Sounds like A sort of like Traditional big song And add something That makes it feel fresh And that's like Why I think The electronic nuance In it Just makes it feel So special Yeah

1:33:05Yeah At least to me No I agree It's really Even the vocoder Is like More of an electronic Kind of sound With the organic thing And I feel like We're always trying To push the boundaries A little bit Because we do live In this organic pop Kind of world But anytime we get to do Like a vocoder Or electric guitar That's really distorted It's always fun Yeah So yeah This is like This is like One of my favourites On the album It just feels like Such an amazing moment And yeah This is a real example Of just throwing A lot of pain At the wall Yeah A lot of everything You know Fantastic Let's have a blast

1:33:36Of the ending Or the big crescendo Yep Absolutely I'll come out Of the chorus Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast Let's have a blast And that's the last one on the album, huh?

1:34:21Yeah, fantastic.

Gig memories and working class advice

1:34:23So that is Dying Day. We're going to keep you here just a little bit longer. We've got a couple of questions we ask everybody who comes on Take Notes. I want to ask you a couple more from our patrons on Patreon. Biko Bannerese, I hope, is how you pronounce that. What has been your most mind-blowing gig experience? Oh, mind-blowing gig experience. There's been a few. I think a personal one was like when I headlined the Hammersmith Apollo was super cool. Like seeing my mum front and center in the middle of stage and just seeing sort of like

1:34:54how far all of this had come from like playing in my bedroom to playing in pubs and clubs to like your 100, 200-cut venues to doing that. And that was like super special for me. But then also, you know, coming out in sort of like a 90,000 capacity stadium with Ed Sheeran for the first time was like super awesome. And, you know, singing with one of my like, you know, biggest inspirations and, you know, it being a close friend now was just a mind-blowing experience. Yeah, yeah, totally. Have there been other people's concerts you've been to that you've, that helped spur you on

1:35:26and kind of made you do this? I remember seeing Peace do a like comeback run and listening to 1998 in this venue called like Trent Students Union. It was like in Nottingham, like 2,000 people and literally feeling the ground shake and just being like, this is what music is. Yeah, fantastic. What about you, Peter? On a Miles front, my wife and I actually flew to Rome when he opened up for Ed. And that was like such an amazing experience. And Miles didn't play Stargazing in his set. And we were just like, that's funny.

1:35:57He didn't play Stargazing. And he comes up to us in the crowd and he's like hanging out with me and my wife, Sarah. And he's like, dude, like the files got corrupted for Stargazing. We couldn't play it. I was like, that sounds weird. But I like didn't even question it. And then Ed's set is there and we watch it and it's like amazing. And then Ed brings Miles up to play Stargazing together. And that was like such a crazy moment. Like we literally started in like my bedroom. And then to see him play like with his hero, Ed, like one of my heroes, was like amazing. You know? Yeah, I love that. Aaron Dixon has been in touch.

1:36:28It can feel impossible to make it if you come from a working class background or don't live in London. What advice would you give to young artists in those positions? Yeah, I grew up in Luton, so outside of London. And I was as working class as it comes, you know, I was like free school meals, like gas and electric key card. Like, you know, I definitely get it. I think for me, it's London isn't the same thing it used to be. It's like, it's amazing. But the access that you have just on your mobile phone now that you have access to the world, like, you know, going to London didn't make my career.

1:37:01I think being able to share, like, just experiences in doing the pub gigs and the club gigs and the smaller venues really built the confidence and the skill. And then being able to share my music with the world via social media was a tool that is inexpensive, but also opens you up to so many big things. And, you know, you see it, whether it be Alex Warren or Benson Boone or Shibuzi or Bella Kay coming through more recently instead of Lefty coming through more recently, or even going back to Justin Bieber and YouTube, it's like social media in our generation has always

1:37:33been a predominant platform to break. And so, you know, if you have a iPhone or Samsung or whatever it is, and you have access to the internet, you can get going. Yeah. And it's interesting because it seems to me that there was a determination on your side that this is what you wanted to do and that you were going to make it. But there was also a patience. I don't know where you got that from, but you kind of waited and took your time about how you were going to go about things, partly seeing the lay of the land, trying to work out what's the best way.

1:38:04But that's quite an interesting step and decision. Definitely. It was super tough, you know, like it's really fun when people say it's an overnight success, but I've been playing and writing music since I was 11 years old, you know, so I'm 27 now. So 16 years I've been doing music and I think it's really awesome to see artists who have been artists for a while having their moments because it makes it seem so much more achievable. Like you look at Noah Khan, that was like seven years in the making and that's from when he was signed, you know, you look at examples like Jelly Roll, who won, you know, I think

1:38:38best new artist at the Grammys, didn't he? And he was like in his late thirties at the time. So it was like, there's no timeline on being a musician. I think the hardest part about being a musician is like you said, having the patience to wait until it's your time and a lot of people, a lot more talented than me, won't make it because it's that need to have it now and that need to do it now. But sometimes it's just about, you know, keep on doing what you're doing, believing in it and eventually something will open up. Can I just say something to that? I also have seen it up close with Miles and I feel like one thing he didn't mention is

1:39:10how hard he works. I remember when we were making the first EP and he was staying at our house and we were writing every day and then in the mornings he would go live on TikTok for a couple hours and play for like fans direct and like he works really hard. So I feel like that's a big part of it too. Yeah, definitely. I remember in my like neurotic stage, I was like posting like six videos a day and going live for like four hours a day when I was like, this social media thing works. I was like, now I'm gonna make it work. But even before that, like when I was at university, I was like working at Tesco, going

1:39:42university, playing like four open nights, like a week. And then on the weekends, like traveling to a neighboring city and going and playing a pub gig or picking up a wedding here and there, like I did way more than a thousand shows before I did my first headline. So yeah, I think it's important just to really work hard. What did you study at university? I did sociology and social policy. Right. Yeah, which is not what I'm doing now, but I've always been a hard worker. So like I graduated with a good degree. I went on to start my own business management consultancy, which did really well.

1:40:14Um, and then, yeah, I sort of like sold up shop and that sort of funded my music career. Wow. That's really interesting. Yeah. So a lot going on in that brain of yours. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot. There's a lot. I think music's two sides. You have to be a creative thrown through and absolutely love what you do, but you also have to be like super smart. Like, you know, I think some of the best musicians, I'm going to say best musicians, some of the most successful commercial musicians are like really smart people. Um, and it's not by luck. It's by like real hard work and, you know, whether it be your Ed Sheeran's of the world

1:40:49or your Alex Warren's of the road or your Taylor Swift's or Noah Kahn's of the world, like they work really hard. Yeah. That's so true. That's really interesting. That's great. Um, right now onto our questions that we ask.

Essential kit and final advice

1:41:01Everybody comes on, on take notes. So the first of them relates to kit. Is there one piece of kit that this album wouldn't be the same without? Do you think? What do you mean kit? Sorry. I mean, it could be anything. I guess it could be a plugin. It could be an instrument. It could be a microphone. Honestly, I would say your Taylor. Yeah. 100%. I would say that guitar is magical. Yeah. And every song that we wrote that has done at least a bit well has been started on that

1:41:33guitar. Is this the guitar that you haven't changed the strings on since you bought it in 2011? I bought it at a random guitar shop in Santa Cruz when I was in school there. And it's so funny. I remember early on, you're like, dude, someday kids are going to be like, that's the guitar. But it's like funny when you buy an instrument, you never know the journey it's going to take and what a crazy journey it's taken. I would say the same thing. That guitar is like, it's been with us all around the world and we start 90% of our songs on it. Wow. The other question we ask everybody is about advice, whether there's something you've learned

1:42:05along the way or some words of wisdom that somebody gave you that you would then pass on to other people. Well, I think for me, the biggest advice I could pass on is to have fun doing it. I think that the trap that you fall into, and even I fell into it prior to finding the success that I have, is that I felt like I was trying way more than I was having fun.

1:42:36And I think you could sense that in the music. I think you could sense that in the marketing. I think you could sense that in every aspect of being an artist and the ones who are having fun, even if it's stressful, even if it's difficult, the ones who prioritize, like I'm doing this because I was that kid in my bedroom who wanted to do this and used to stand on the edge of a sofa pretending I was doing it. The closer you sort of like keep that mindset of that kid that just wanted to do it for the fun and love of it, the further you'll get. I would say from my perspective, for producers and writers out there, something that I was

1:43:07told that I really believe in is find the artists that you really love and believe in fully, even if they have no music out, like just build with your people. And I feel like with Miles, it's been so cool to like build with him. And, you know, now so many people want to work with him, but we have a small crew and it's like those people who believed in him when there was nothing. And I think instead of trying to get cuts with the artists that are already established, find people you love and build with them. That's what I would say. Yeah. Fascinating. It's been so good talking to you both.

1:43:38Thank you so much for your time.

Mary's song

1:43:39Thank you for having us. Let's hear one more song from the album. A final selection. Mary's song. Oh yeah. Come on. Come on. Come on. Let's do that one. Okay. Let's hear Mary's song then. Who is Mary? Can I dare ask? You can dare ask Mary. It's a dog. I've got a note to end on. Mary's based on a story of like two people that I know in my life that have gone through like a lot of adversity, but have sort of smiled in the face of it. And it's their story. Fantastic. This is it. This is Mary's song.

1:44:10The last selection today from Miles Smith.

1:44:17Thank you for listening. And in particular, thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon. I'm just one part of the team that brings you Take Notes, and it relies on your support. Access to Patreon includes the full-length videos of new episodes where possible, ad-free episodes, and detailed gear lists, among many other things. If you'd like to join, head to the link on our socials or website. For pictures, highlight clips, and behind-the-scenes content, head to our Instagram or YouTube channel. And on Discord, you can join the growing Take Notes community.

1:44:48Once again, thank you for listening. Until next time, goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

1:45:19Bye.

1:45:21She's got scars and hurt from her history. Still trying to run away from the memories. But Mary can't hide. Mary can't cry. Mary's so tired. Mary's so, so lost in her mind by his big dreams. Small house fast car down the fifth street. I think she's in a lot of... NFL football season is here, which means when you switch to Verizon, it feels like... Touchdown! Because you get NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube on us. When you buy an eligible 5G phone on select unlimited plans.

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