KWC Organization visited Michael Bates, who has been in Lohja, Finland (at IVK Music Finland studio) for the past week recording vocals for his upcoming album. Michael arrived to Finland 6th of September for the Karaoke World Championships. He spent his week (prior to the main event) meeting the musicians working on his album, doing KWC promo’s and rehearsing for his show pieces in KWC main event. After the event Michael headed straight to Lohja from Lahti and started working. Now, after a week in studio, Michael and Erkka Korhonen (Michael’s producer) share their views about the album and the whole process.
Michael Bates:
“This last week has been a new and exciting experience for me.
Every minute in the studio I have spent learning about the music industry and exploring my depths and limits as a recording artist. Having people around me that I can easily work with has been a huge advantage for me. Getting to know how my producer works in the studio and vice versa has been something that has been crucial to ensure that we keep a strong work ethic.
For the last few months we have had clear communication with the song writers involved to make sure that when we record these songs, my interpretation has stayed alligned with the songwriter’s visions. As the album has a running storyline through it, it’s also been very important that the right mood and vibe is created and varied both musically and vocally throughout this production.
With the vocal tracks down and most of the instrumental tracks completed the album is shaping up to be a huge sound that hopefully will appeal to listeners of all ages.
I’m really looking forward to the next vocal session. We’ll be recording in my home country of Australia. We have some great technicians, musicians and studios, as does Finland. This is going to be yet another new and exciting chapter of this story that is my debut album.”
Erkka Korhonen:
“I met Michael for the first time a year ago. Me and my friend Patrik Eriksson were asked to supply a song for the male winner of KWC 2008 and I was asked to produce it. I really had no expectations whatsoever but the experience of recording ”Tell Me” with him was fantastic. His professionalism shone through all that he did, concidering that he only had a few hours after his victory to learn the song (instead of partying) and he had to sing on a demo background.
Pretty soon after that we started to plan the actual album production. Several things led to one another and suddenly we had a multi-continental songwriting team together including a #1 hit songwriter from America…
The production has been awesome so far, and I don’t expect anything less from the rest of it. Michael has proved to be a very mature and multi-sided artist who can easily interpret our music and add his own personality all over it. I can’t go into too much detail about the album itself but I promise that it’ll be something special.
I’m really looking forward to doing the second half of the lead vocals in Michael’s hometown in Australia. I’ve never visited that country before, and I can’t wait to go there!”
After a week of hard work, it was time to celebrate the past week and Michael’s bright future!
