Mind Over Madness

M M Reid – Vocals
M M Reid – Guitars
M M Reid – Bass
M M Reid – Drums
M M Reid – Keyboards
G Mcleod – Lead Guitars on “Adreamaline”, first solo on “The Heart of Madness” and the amazing exit solo on “The Heart of Madness”

After accidentally writing “Righteous Breed” when I should have been restringing my guitar, I got a real taste for creating new material.  I realised I hadn’t lost the thrill of writing, or the ability to write, and so I decided to put my “re-record all the old Fury stuff” idea on hold and instead work on writing an album of new material.  The first track I wrote was “Hurts Like Hell” which, as you’ll see elsewhere on the site, was written so I could let my author friend hear what I thought her fictional band would sound like.

The more people who heard it and loved it, the more spurred on I was to keep writing.  “Adreamaline” came next, and I asked my friend Graham if he’d like to contribute guitars to it, which he did.  The whole thing was messy, though, as I’d originally recorded it through my Fender Stage 112 SE amp, with a live mic into Sonar; it was just really muddy sounding and I ended up re-recording the guitars twice – the first time was using a different position with the mic and the second time was recording clean into the PC and then using Neural DSP’s Omega Granophyre amp sim for the sound.  The point of the song is to capture the unique feeling of invulnerability and power you sometimes have during the dream state.

Next up was “Fourteen Days Lain Alone” which, if you hadn’t guessed from the overall sound, is a tribute to Layne Staley and written and performed in the style of Alice in Chains. I loved writing this one, and I think it’s the first song I’ve written in a long time where it’s 100% acoustic – the Yamaha electroacoustic guitar did a great job, though.

If I told you that my next song was tentatively titled “Christoph”, would you guess why?  Yeah, probably not.  It starts off in 3/4… which is a waltz… Christoph Waltz.  Never mind.  It ultimately became “The Feeding Hand” and is my second favourite song on the album.  I can’t really put into words why, but it just really appeals to me.  I love the melodies, the time signatures, the tempo changes, and I don’t remember actually writing the lyrics, but stuff like “yesterday’s beliefs are our regrets” really hits home.

April 19th, 2021. Man, everything changed for me, musically, that day.  I was messing around with the guitar, mixing it up with some amazing synth sounds, and this atmospheric thing started to take shape.  I recorded several tracks of keyboards, a couple of guitar tracks, and then drums.  After the synth opening ended, a riff presented itself and flowed so naturally.  My recording that night was just 1m 45s but it was enough for me to know that I was going to turn it into something big.  I thought about writing a concept, and realised that the story of Albert Rhone would be the best thing for me to tackle – I created him in 1992 for the Dead Good EP song “Rhone” and then the last song I ever wrote for Fury in 1997 was “A New Horizon”, which told an alternative ending to Albert’s story, but it was never recorded.

And that was it.  From April 19th until very recently, I put a few hours every weekend into writing a concept piece that would tell the full story of Albert Rhone, from his birth to his death.  It told of how (and why) he went from being a normal kid to a young adult responsible for the death of over twenty women, what happened to his mother, and why he disappeared for so long.  Each week, I’d write another part to the musical journey, and some weeks I’d rip everything out that I’d recorded for one or two weeks before because it didn’t feel right.  I wanted this song to be a perfect representation of who I am as a musician and songwriter.

The song is “The Heart of Madness”, named as such because it’s the heart of this Mind Over Madness album, but also because his heart drove him to his madness.  I asked my friend Graham if he’d like to guest on it, and so the first solo you hear at 08:11 is Graham until I take over at 08:39… and then from 21:20 until the song ends at 24:00 is all Graham.  It is, by far, my favourite piece of guitar playing that I’ve heard from him and it still gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.  Thank you, Graham.  I finished “The Heart of Madness” the same day that my friend JC died, and I really wish he’d got to hear it.  RIP, my friend.

I then went back to the recording of “A New Horizon” that I’d started in January, and which I’d dumped in favour of re-recording The Dead Good EP after my click track screwed up and I lost the whole thing.  Even though the song was written in 1997, we never actually recorded a final version of it.  I wrote it, we jammed it, we recorded ONE live version of it in the studio and nothing ever came of it.  Another five hours of working out exact tempos and time signatures, and my new click track was done.  All that remained was, well, everything else.  And samples… boy, the samples… because I was telling an alternative ending to Albert Rhone’s story in “A New Horizon”, I needed to find male and female samples that would fit the story, as well as cop radio communication.  I got there, though, and I finally recorded the song I started in 1997… and then re-recorded all the guitars in the middle of July as I just didn’t like them.

And that, as they say, is that.  It won’t be my last ever album, but I doubt I’ll ever write a 24-minute-long concept piece again, and if I did, I doubt it would even be half as good as “The Heart of Madness”.  I just hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I do.