We are really doing this...
When I found myself trawling through holiday let websites, I couldn’t quite believe that we were embarking on recording another album. We did consider other options, perhaps going professional and finding a studio and an engineer. Noting that Greg and I (along with Byrne) had spent a neat sum on Social Dancing’s (may I humbly say excellent) debut LP we decided against this and opted for a week away. Its still costing us money…and time. (when people buy music from artists its an incredible support)
The search for a suitable cottage proved challenging, four guys, wanting four separate bedrooms and a large open living room for that unique room sound you can’t get with FX and plugins. Eventually, a few candidates emerged, then we reached a final two, with Teviotside Lodge near Kelso a frontrunner alongside a familiar site…the legendary Springfield Cottage, the space where we recorded Weird Decibels 2 back in 2015.
When I emailed about Springfield a familiar response came from the letting agency, the price quoted on the site was for two adults…extra charges would be implemented. I remember the last time we contacted the owner, and he agreed to waive that fee but on this occasion it out is off, plus Teviotside looked too dam appealing. After a few clicks our sixth cottage was booked, it was real and it felt like the band was back.
Writing the tenth has now taken nearly fours years, that is very unusual for us. By now we had had two Slange sessions, both fruitful, we now had a collection of new songs.
Derek, more than the rest of us insisted that we were still short of tracks, especially now that we had dropped ‘My Internal Wasted Mind’ and ‘Bad Things Happen’. Time was pressing, it was now creeping towards February.
On the 23rd January one of those special creative moments happened, we just started jamming a basic major C and G riff, two chords…but we structured the distortion well to build this epic tune. Lyrics just came to me, as they sometimes do, thinking of Scotland at the 2026 world cup I started singing ‘Toe to toe. Nose to nose, here in Scotland we call it a Square Go.”.
Lewis was there, filming some footage for a future documentary, he captured the moment we created the song.
Another tune came to us very much in the same way, as a three piece, when Stu was unable to join us, we started jamming a thick riff in the key of F sharp, with hints of Tad (Derek argues that it is Nirvana’s Blech) we created ‘I Make Great Mistakes’ in just minutes.
A few weeks later, when Stu returned, he added his guitars and the song just came alive. We had also discussed dropping ‘I Try to Be Strong’, it was a bit slower, but Stu was having none of it and insisted it stayed in contention for recording. I’m glad we did as it has a much-needed change of pace for the album.
Song list for our tenth album
1. My Internal Wasted Mind
2. Fire in the Garden
3. Science Will Save Me
4. Bad Things Happen When You’re Bored
5. If Heaven Exists, It’s in Little Bits
6. I Try to Be Strong
7. Derek’s Piano riff which became ‘Will We Be Ok?”
8. I Talk To You
9. Cocaine Cop
10. Caught the Virus
11. Ain’t Stopping
12. Stu’s idea that would become, You Want It
13. Let Me Out Or Let Me Know
14. Square Go
15. I Make Great Mistakes
16. Bones
On the 25th to 2nd May we will be recording our tenth album (no title yet), stay updated here and on our socials throughout the week.
Pabs
weirddecibels.com 
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