The Making Of.......

THE MAKING OF..................

"One hour in a taxi, one and a half hours checking in and waiting at Sydney airport, twelve hours flying to Bangkok, two hour stopover, ten hours flying to London, two hours driving from Heathrow Airport to Gatwick, one and a half hours waiting, two hour flight to Rome, two hour bus ride to Naples Harbour, straight on a ferry for a one and a half hour trip to Capri, fifteen minute taxi to the square and finally a twenty minute walk up steep, windy paths to the studio and accomodation..."

That's how Tim answered the question, "how was the trip Tim?" on arriving at Capri Digital Recording Studios to start recording out tenth album in November, 1992.

After being together for so long it was rather a surprise to us how much fun we had making "Welcome To Wherever You Are", we had the record we wanted but still felt the need to continue writing and recording.

So rather than do the usual thing and tour behind Welcome, we packed up and, for a change of scenery, headed off to a house in the South of France for a couple of weeks in realy October '92. Crammed together in a tiny stone room, playing day and night, discussing the past, present and future, we got some more material together, and after a brief promotional tour of Europe for "Welcome" and a short break, we all reconvened at a studio on the Isle of Capri, an almost impossible place to escape from, as you can see from Tim's description not the easiest place to get to.

By the end of the first night we had a song recorded and had managed to cover ourselves and most of the control room in the local Tiberio Wine. Over the four months of recording there were many nights like this, releasing tension and energy onto tape instead of thin air. There were crazy nights "Italian Style" with the tape machine room getting totally flooded but mercifully our precious tapes left untouched. Nights of arguments, declarations of love, craziness, lucidity, all the emotions that accompany creation and intensity created in an environment where there is no escapism from the task at hand and the people you are with.

The occasional arrival of journalists, our manager Chris or visitors was met with the desperate cry from one and all .. Humans. This always added to the fun and at least enabled us to get a small amount of feedback on the recording as it progressed. Most left as changed people.

By the time Christmas came around, we had 50% of the album recorded. We had a break allowing us to participate in the festive season with our families and then it was back to work. Michael, Andrew, Niven (the engineer) and Mark Opitz (our co-producer and referee) arrived back in Capri a week earlier and had got together six more tracks by the time the rest of the band arrived including FREEDOM DEEP, PLEASE (YOU GOT THAT...), KILL THE PAIN, DAYS OF RUST, VIKING JUICE and the title track FULL MOON, DIRTY HEARTS (the lyrics to which Michael wrote on the hour and a half ferry ride from Naples to Capri.) The songs gave us the chance to experiment with different textures and help complete a record that was taking on a life of it's own.

We finished the tracks in late February '93 with the final night becoming an all night session to allow us to capture last minute feels and ideas before we had to catch the morning ferry and head off to Paris for a week or so of over dubs. From there the tapes went to Los Angeles for Mark to start mixing with Bob Clearmountain. Six months later, the album was finished with the majority of the mixes having been done by Mark Opitz back in the Isle of Capri in July of this year.

And here you have it ..............................