Daylight Demo (1985)

Daylight Demo by Wud.

Here is the demo Wud recorded at Daylight Studios in Honiton during May 1985. The engineer was Ian Dent.

Ken and George arrived in the morning with their guitars, but little else. Peter, who had arranged the session, told them not to bother bringing more as everything else would be provided, apart from a distortion pedal if one would be needed. George had borrowed Simon’s mustard yellow MXR Distortion pedal, a wonderful device, and used that where it was required.

It was only George’s second time inside a recording studio, and the first as a main performer. He still had Yvonne’s Westone Paduak at the time, and it returned to its owner a few days after the Daylight Demo had been recorded. Ken had his Lowden Flambeau and nothing else, as George was going to be handling the guitars. He noted the Fender acoustic on a stand at the back of the live room, but it went unplayed that day.

It was the very first time that George had encountered a DI box and he asked what it did. Ian said that it made the sound a bit more meaty and boosted the signal level. Cool!

That’s No Way to Pay a Bodyguard was going to be the first song. Once a basic sound and click track was set up, George played all of the parts. It took a bit longer than he was expecting and for some reason he couldn’t get the lead guitar part at the beginning to go as it should, but Ian was very patient and eventually the thing was done. George wondered about keeping the bass drum thump of the click track in the final mix, and was glad he didn’t in the end.

George wanted a flanger sound for the rhythm guitar, for which he normally used the original Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, so Ian provided one from the studio outboard gear. It wasn’t the same as the Mistress, but it was decent enough.

The next song was Flashback. This was more of an engineering challenge, with its tempo changes and the solo of unknown length, and Ian was quite fascinated and impressed by the song and George’s very definite ideas about how exactly it should go.

It took somewhat longer to record all of the guitars. Ian needed to do various punch-ins during the recording and he did a splendid job.

Wud only had a single day to record and producer the whole demo. By now the time was racing ahead. It was decided that Ken, who had been sat around feeling rather bored all day, should try to record his vocals for the two songs that George had already finished, and then the last two songs, Indian Summer and 1984, should be recorded live, with George and Ken performing their parts at the same time.

Ken did a splendid job of the vocals and managed to record his parts fairly quickly. The harmonies in Flashback really gave the song a lift. Ian was pleased.

Having had a break for an hour or so, George’s fingers had started to feel a little sore and attempting to play Indian Summer on Ken’s Flambeau, with its massively heavy strings, was a little painful as well as a challenge. As it happened, the song was recorded on probably the second or third take. Ken overdubbed his vocals for the outro. He said that he had “gone flat” during the original recording.

Finally it was time for 1984. The distortion pedal was plugged in to the DI box again and the two musicians let it rip. The recording was the first take.

Despite running into overtime, Ian was again impressed, this time at how quickly the band had managed to lay down the rest of the material.

With all of the recording done, Ian took a few photos of the band, many of which can be seen in the Wud Gallery, and then it was time to go home.

A few days later, a box of Daylight Demo tapes arrived. How glorious!

01	That’s No Way to Pay a Bodyguard
02	Flashback
03	Indian Summer
04	1984