Bands and original music

Original songs (from back in the day!)

I have composed many original songs which I performed on London’s acoustic scene for several years, both as a solo act and with The Cliff Smith Band.

The tracks in the Soundcloud player opposite are taken from my ‘Times & Places‘ EP (2006):

• Gone So Long
• Close To You
• Life On a Strand
• Trying So Hard
• The One I Left Behind

Julya was a recording experiment. I had just bought a 16 track recorder and wanted to use all 16 tracks! From memory, the track contains, acoustic, twelve string, electric, classical, synth and bass guitars, three or four vocal parts, programmed drums and sound effects…

I have also composed music for piano, string quartet, choir and orchestra.

I still enjoy the creative process and often help my pupils with their songs. I also lay down guest guitar and vocals in recording sessions whenever I have the opportunity.

The Twelve Bar Club, Denmark Street

Shot in 2006 at my favourite acoustic club in London, The 12 Bar Club, off Denmark Street. It’s a grimy, sticky place and I have had many great nights there, both as a performer and audience member.

This was a period when I was experimenting with a loop station and distortion pedal on my acoustic guitar, straight into the PA. You can hear a little bit of the loop station at the end of the video. Eventually I decided that I preferred working with real musicians, and formed The Cliff Smith Band!

Recent songs

I had a big break from songwriting when I got involved in the covers band scene – more on that below. But over the last few years I started writing again, and every now and again I actually finish recording a song!

Can I Be A Better Man?

I wrote the lyrics on the plane to Japan back in 2024, and the music on a guitar that I bought in Japan. This song is the biggest project I have created so far.

I programmed drums and then recorded two double tracked guitars, one triple tracked guitar, double tracked the lead vocal and double tracked four backing vocals. So I recorded 7 guitar tracks and 10 vocal tracks, plus bass guitar. I then mixed and mastered it, shot 23 camera angles, shot the artwork photo and then edited it all together.

So it turned into a bit of a mission… There are things that I could have done better, but there always are!

Sunflower

This song was started in 2022. I had been teaching and studying a lot of jazz, and it bled through into my creative process. The lyrics mean something very deep to me, but I won’t explain them. This song will probably mean different things to different people, and that’s OK. I hope that I created some nice imagery for you at least.

The song had a bridge section which changed key, and a very ‘clever’ run of chords to get back to the original key. I was very happy with my key change, but I just couldn’t make the whole song work emotionally, so I effectively chopped out more than 50% of the song and threw it away. What I had left gave me something I could use to tell a story and create a journey.

I tried it on 6 different guitars, and my LTD M1000 was the one that spoke to me. It’s a heavy metal guitar really, but it has a great clean sound on the neck pickup and really inspired me when I played this song on it. In fact I wrote the lead riff at the start on the LTD just before recording it!

Deep Dive (Waiata for El)

In late 2020, my brother Pete told me that his daughter, El, had been diagnosed with a very rare, very fast growing brain cancer. Pete asked me to help him write a song for El.

Pete and his family live in Australia, I live in London. Both countries were locked down for COVID so we couldn’t meet up. I asked Pete to write some words for the song. He gave me a few lines, I added a few, and we had a verse. I had already written music for a full song, but it was a cheerful samba, and totally wrong for the situation (it just came out, as songs tend to do!).

I couldn’t get the lyrics to fit the samba, so I wrote the music for a piano ballad, added the verse lyrics and sent it to Pete. I had all the chords, melody and arrangement. He sent me some more lyrics and we got a second verse together. Try as we might, we just couldn’t fit any lyrics to my chorus melody.

I spoke to Pete about it, and he asked if I could make the song more cheerful. I knew then that I had to start again!

One Sunday, I printed out all of the messages and lyrics from Pete, along with the lyrics I’d written and laid them out on my desk. Within a couple of hours, I’d written the music and guitar solo for Deep Dive (Waiata for El), and rejigged the lyrics to fit. I recorded a quick demo and sent it to Pete, and thankfully he liked it!

Sadly, El didn’t make it. We got to spend some time together in London and Greece on her last big holiday, and it was a beautiful goodbye. I performed the song live for her on a boat in Greece, El liked the song but hated all the fuss!

Later that year, I performed an acoustic arrangement of it at her funeral. It was the hardest gig I’ve ever played.

We miss her.

The Forgers Cover Band (2013-2020) was my three-piece rock/indie covers band. We covered songs from the fifties to the noughties, but mainly specialised in rock & indie music from the nineties onwards.

I played electric guitar and sang lead and backing vocals. I was also the bandleader, manager, booking agent and PR dept….

We performed across the UK, mainly at private functions, and had a residency at The Stage Door Pub in London’s Waterloo. We played the Motcomb Street Festival a couple of times which was great fun!

Recording session

The Forgers audio demo (see Soundcloud embed opposite), was recorded at London’s Alaska Studios. I played Fender Telecaster, Gretsch Tennessean, Gibson Les Paul and Gibson SG guitars into Vox, Ampeg and Marshall amps.

I performed all of the guitars and vocals and was joined in the studio by Simon Czaban (bass) and Jason Holling (drums).

I had a lot of fun recording this demo and learned a lot. Bob at Alaska was great to work with.

Promo video

Recorded at Terminal Studios in London.

In this video I play a Fender Stratocaster Deluxe HSS through a Blackstar HT Dual valve distortion unit into a Vox AC30tb amplifier.

I was joined by Chris Higginbottom (drums and vocals) and Max Wurr (bass and vocals). The sound engineer was Alex Burak, and Henry D.C. Williams recorded the video.

There are some live Forgers videos on my YouTube channel.