Brad and Zok's Excellent Adventure

Well, for the first time in 7 weeks we had our first 2 day weekend!! So Zok and I decided to hire ourselves a little automobile and go on a most excellent adventure through the countryside..

On Saturday we went down to check out the Welsh capitol, Cardiff.. It was pretty shitty weather, but we didn't care, we were just stoked to be surrounded by humans again!! Seriously, we have been living on the Rockfield farm surrounded by the same 8 people for the last 7 weeks so it was nice change.. Zok bought some sneakers, I bought a jacket and this made us happy.. We were also hanging out to play darts and snooker, and get some tattoos all at the same time, so when we stumbled upon this place, naturally we were 2 stoked gentlemen... haha!!

Anyway, we went home, ate some grub and went out for a beer at the local pub in Monmouth.. It wasn't bad except for the guy in a matching tracksuit giving us a bit of stick about our jeans.. Apparently our jeans were a bit tight for his liking so he let us know about it, haha.. Well, we complimented him on his fantastic blue matching tracksuit and I think he got confused and went and had a spew in the toilets, so we went home..

On Sunday we drove east to Bath in England.. Man, Bath is beautiful!!! Zok and I spent the day walking around checking out the local attractions.. We also found a little place called Caste Combe which is an old village just out of Bath.. here are some photos

After another great day the excellent adventure had to come to an end. So we drove home, ordered some indian takeaway, ate it, and called it a night. Zok got some rest for another big day of guitars.. Speaking of guitars, the songs are sounding amazing, things are really coming together now.. The boys on the 6 strings are absolutely shredding at the moment!! Nice one lads..

Well, there ya have it folks, till next time...

Drums, Drums, Drums

Hey Everyone,

So its Saturday night here in Wales and I'm drinking a nice bottle of Hoorgarden (so cheap over here), and I have just finished packing up my drums. It's official...Drums for Gyro album number #4 are officially complete. Its kind of sad in a way because I have honestly had one of the most creative and inspirational drumming experiences of my life over the past few weeks.

I had heard stories about Gil being quite hard on drummers, but the truth is he simply has an amazing ability to bring the BEST out of drummers, and for me I can definately say this is the case.

Working with Gil on this record has been a real eye opener from a drumming perspective. All along he has really encouraged me to make the drum parts as exciting as possible...He's pushed me to the point where I have done things with my drumming on this record that I never thought possible. I even managed to pull a muscle (piriformis) in my leg from so much drumming. Whoo Hoo!

At the same time there has been a really wonderful spontenaity with recording the drum parts. On one song (Spider) Gil and I really talked about just playing whatever came naturally and so while we were doing drum takes I just did the fills really randomly...listened back to the takes and just went with the ones that felt the best.

In a number of instances we talked about drums in terms of the way they made you feel or the tension they created. All over the album are instances where the drums are inspirired by lyrics or the emotion in the music. (Chopping wood, Spiders running across beds, Running for the sun, Heatbeats) all went into inspiring the drum beats and parts. I really cant wait for you to here it.

Another big inspiration has been Rockfield studios itself. Kingsly the owner is forever telling us stories about bands that have been here and I've taken a keen intrest in learning about other drummers that have recorded in the very same room the drums have just been recorded in. Here are my 3 faves.

1. Roger Taylor - Queen

My dads favourite band and the one band I grew up listening too at home more than any. Queen recorded there Sheer Heart Attack and Night At The Opera Albums here. Including Bohemian Raphsody. The drum fill in Working With Wood is a little tribute to Roger's drumming and especially his drum fills. (You can see it below in the video, when we were going for a take of the song)

2. Igor Cavalera - Seputura

The crazy brazilians recorded Chaos A.D here in 1992. A furious metal album that I grew up listening too courtesy of my brothers booming stereo. Apparantly they were one of the most courteous bands to have ever recorded at Rockfield. Igor injected an an aamzing energy into his drumming. One that I hope I have been able to put into this new record.

3. Phil Collins - Genisis
Big Phil recorded on Robert Plants 1st solo album here at Rockfield. A drumming icon and according to Kinglsy the owner and all round good guy. The origional cadbruy gorilla knew a thing or two about drumming and great tunes. Thats for sure.

So as you can see some really big footsteps to be following in but at the same time brilliant food for thought when thinking about my drumming and this new Gyro record.

Anyway, Danny and Zok are now doing there thing and the songs are really coming to life. Zok is adding his array of technicolour to the songs through his amazing leads and Danny has begun adding the cream on the cake with his vox.

3.5 weeks to go and Album#4 is sounding better than I could have ever imagined.

ROB

GUITARS, GUITARS, GUITARS!!!

Well as you may know by now, we have well and truly got stuck into guitars for the album..And we have just worked out that Gil + Joe + Zok and Dan = some truly amazing guitar sounds for album #4! We have been writing and demoing for so long now that it feels good to be gettin' our final takes down for some of these songs...We are more excited than kids at Xmas.

Anyways, check out some pics n vids of stuff goin on around here...!

Zok

More GYRO TATTS!

Hey cool cats..!

We have a very special Tattoo update this week from one of our closest and oldest friends!

(Not old as in age, but for how long this great young man has been supporting our arses- this man literally put clothes on our back when we could barely afford to eat on tour.)

Introducing the great Mike Wargeant of Sydney!

Great story to Mike's first tattoo...

"STAY FOREVER" - This was the first tattoo I ever got, it was a day or two before my birthday, and from memory it was the day before Gyro’s first ever show at the Metro in Sydney... It was for “Safe Forever”... But this was before that song had been released and I had only heard it once, I thought the lyrics were Stay Forever, so I got that done... Oops for life I guess. But Dan (Sanders) was pumped on it, and changed the opening line of the bridge to Stay Forever for that show, and maybe one or two others... It’s been a while since then. But I love you guys for life.

"I'd wait for you, oh, I'd kill for you" - The lyrics from Mike's killer back piece are from Beware Wolf on Are You Involved. Very nice.

Cheers for the pics and the stories Warge!

Much love and respect from the Gyro crew.

Zok xo

the lonely train ride

Yep, so as Rob mentioned, I missed the train! It made the 2 hour journey to London pretty boring thats for sure. I didn't have a phone either so I couldn't let the lads know I was half an hour behind them. This made me sad..

But then I realised I could buy beer on the train so I got happy again..

Then I made friends with the girl serving the beers and she let me use her phone to call Zok..

Thanks nice Welsh girl whos name I forget!!

Anyway, I got a bit of a cheer from the boys when they saw me and we jumped in a cab and made our way out to Brixton. Secretly I was freaking out that I was the guy that was responsible for Gil missing the start of the show but we made it in plenty of time. I even picked up a burger for dinner before the show. Too easy!

Night Off To Go Watch The Pixies Play In London

Soooo Last week we had a very exciting 24hrs down here at Rockfield and in London. Gil as you know is a world class producer and one of the all time great albums he produced is Doolittle by The Pixies.

The Pixies have just kicked off a world tour to mark the 20th anniversary of this truley classic album and they, of course invited Gil to their 1st London show. In true Gil style he said he couldn't make it to the show unless the band he was working with 'US........ yay' got tix too.

The Pixies said 'Hey no problem big G' and the next thing you know we were in a cab on our way to the train station...on our way to London whoooo hoooo. Except BRAD MISSED THE TRAIN!!!! Hahaha, I shouldn't laugh but it was quite comical seeing him on the platform with his tea in hand as the train took off....I'll have to let him explain what happened next!

So, The show was incredible. Charles & Kim's vocals were off the hook perfect. I actually think Frank Black's voice sounds even better now than it did back in the day. So powerful and such raw emotion. Mind blowing really. It feels like such an honour to finally get to see them play. We were on tour when they last played in Perth.

Anyway after the show we hung out with Gil at the after party and he introduced us to Joey and Dave who were both great guys. Dave the drummer is also a magician and before we new it an imprompture magic act lasting about 20 minutes took place. It was incredible...Card tricks, lucky band tricks...we were all shaking our head in disbelief at some of these tricks...T'was a great way to end the night before retiring to our 10Pound backpackers! Triple bunk beds anyone?

All in all a great night!!!! Heaps of fun and something none of us will forget anytime soon.

Onya Gil!

Check out some Pixies goodness below

MUSIC TO LIVE YOUR LIFE BY...

hey dudes n' dudettes...just a quick update for yas...

in between all the hours we've been doing in the studio here in Wales, we're able to compile a bit of a playlist for Myspace on 12 songs that have influenced us to make music together- and help shape the Gyroscope sound....we we're honoured to be able to have a chat about these tunes...!

take a listen here.... www.myspace.com/thepulse

enjoy!~

Gyroscope xo

Back from Bristol, London, and back into work!!!

Hey what up crew...apologies for the lack of updates over the last week...it's just that we've been busy as hell over here in the UK!! Besides working away in the studio for a comfortable 12 to 13 hours a day (these hours will get longer as we go along don't forget), we have been gettin around a little, takin' care of business n trying to enjoy ourselves a little... as they say 'All work and no play does something or watever or somethin??' Ya know what i mean?? Anyways..besides catching The Pixies' Doolittle show at Brixton Academy last night (cough cough haha...which was amazing by the way :) Rob has almost managed to knock off all his drum tracks, Brad has done half of his bass tracks or so, and Dan's dug into a couple rhythm guitars! Starting next week THO we'll be getting knee deep into all things guitars for a few weeks- thats where fun starts (for me anyways) then vocals, and all the extra fruits including piano! Did he say piano WTF? The list goes on, and damn there is still MUCH work to do! All good tho!

So here's some pics n vids of the 'going ons' around ere' lately at Rockfield in Wales!! 4 and a bit weeks to go still- feels a little like we're in the Big Brother house - but an all male version, so ah lets just say there's alot of bromance goin on!

Zok

Hey Everyone,

Rob here coming to you from Album #4 recording HQ - Rockfield, Wales. Danny boy is currently tracking some sweet rhythm guitars so I thought I would take the time to let you all in on how the drums are looking and sounding.

So the first win in getting a great drum sound was getting Gil Norton our producer on board. The man simply knows what a great drum sound is in my opinion. He also has a great ear for knowing what is and isnt the right take. The 2nd win is having our fabulous engineer Joe Hirst around. He has a great ear for tuning and is always happy to try different snares and kick sounds until we are totally happy. We also have a shitload of gear which has been great. At last count there were

9 Snare drums

8 Crash Cymbals

5 Ride Cymbals

3 Hi Hats

and 1 beautiful Pearl Reference kit

Anyway why talk about when I can just show you...Check out the video below...Have a great weekend everyone. We are off to Bristol on our day off which should be fun. Gunna do a walking Banksy tour...

much love

rob