Welcome back Contact Buzz fans! If you weren’t paying attention, we just went on a two week hiatus. Lots of exciting things are planned for the next ‘season’ of Contact Buzz. Tapes, more tat to sell, gigs maybe? Who knows? But here we are with Mince. You may know Mince from me. I’m in Mince. It’s called nepotism.

I’ve been wanting to record Mince for ages. Mainly because they’re my best mates pretty much and I wanted to take them to work with me. ‘Bring your band to work’ day. We started super early… or we would have if we had a key, just waited for three quarters of an hour for the cleaners to turn up - we were eager for Eiger! Same old, same old, Monomyth Room. Old reliable. We had a quick gab, got set up and looked toward Matthew to get us started.

When you get a Contact Buzz session done, you get big drums. When you listen to Mince, you get big drums. A perfect opportunity to create an echo chamber, doing a session with your own band. He’s such a pro, he doesn’t need much, Matthew. Just a pair of sticks (maybe a pair of headphones for the studio version to guide him. I won’t tell if you won’t). Clem’s bass is really important for this song, but it was important that it didn't overtake the guitars. I sent it through my DL4 too, I've been making some mad noises with that thing lately.

Owen’s guitar is the star of the show I think for SOJ. When I wrote it, I wanted something so indicative of Post Punk, ‘The Rat’ by the Walkmen was my main inspiration. As with a lot of our music, Owen’s guitar sometimes serves to compliment what’s going on, but times like this, it's all about taking the tune into a different dimension. The signature Fender champion, with his red Jaguar knock off, just perfection. My guitar is a little less important, more about filling in the space - it's rare we allow space in Mince tunes. Maybe ‘Roadworks’ as the exception. Ended up not liking the tone so I just gritted it up and recorded it again at home.

One space on the 4-track left, so me and George went for the classic, two vocals, one mic. Messy and unpredictable, just how we like it. Lots of delay, the vocals serving the song, more of a texture. George back in his element with that spoken word bit at the end. He’s a powerhouse, isn’t he? I love recording these sessions, but it is special when you get to do it with your mates who you’ve been in a band with for 4 years. Makes me think back to how we started, just 5 lads playing to a handful of people in Purple Pro Room A. All a little older now, not much wiser, but still proper good mates. I love them all.

For Fans of: The Walkmen, The Murder Capital and Shame