HELL OF A NIGHT
WRITER | PRODUCER
Roy and I were doing random sessions while he was working on building his album. He brought over this idea he was working on with this Rick James type beat and if you didn’t know, Roy is an amazing producer, but anyways. He brought over this beat and we wanted to do a big anti-chorus with no drums that still felt hyped. I started humming this melody and Roy took it and molded it into what you hear in the chorus now.
A month or so later we were in Lake Arrowhead working on his album at a cabin overlooking the lake and he told Linus to send me the files to this song to see what we could do. We didn’t really have a hook yet and the production was still rough. After an hour or so Linus cracked a beer with me while Roy was writing lyrics to another song in a different room and we sat down and together nailed the rest of the production. The guitar you hear on the drop of the song is a 1960’s fender jag, through a Kemper and then I ran it through Izotope Trash 2 to give it some balls. I remember before leaving Lake Arrowhead we had discussed doing some big opening chorus, almost like You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones. The next time I heard this song, Linus and Roy had done the choir idea and it sounded insane. To this day it’s one of the songs I’m most proud to have worked on because it is such a mixture of so many genres that I love.
Here is a voice memo from the first session where Roy and I were trying to figure out melodies. You can hear my awful singing voice. I am very blessed to be surrounded by artists who can translate my melodies that I hear in my head.
HELL OF A NIGHT, PT. 2 [THE HALLELUJAH SITCKUP]
WRITER | PRODUCER
This is a special song for me. It’s funny actually, we wrote Hell of a Night Part 2 before we wrote part 1. Roy and I started writing this song in the beginning of November 2016 when we stayed in Joshua Tree for a month writing and working on his future project. This song will always remind of the desert at night. The fire crackling you hear throughout the song was from the fireplace we recorded while burning wood to stay warm. Our main goal of the writing trip we took to Joshua Tree was to find the sound of him going forward and I am so happy that this song made it on there.
After months of not hearing anything about this song, Roy had brought Linus on to the project and the whole thing just came to life. On top of the other songs that Linus was creating with Roy, this one inspired Roy and I to write a Part 1.
Photos from working on it
