9 O'Clock Horses
Track by track with guitarist Dan Weir - Pre-order 9 O’Clock Horses now!
1. Leave It Alone
This is one that came together very quickly, I had the main riffs and the structure, the rest happened in the rehearsal room. It is fast, heavy, and incredible fun to play. Of all the tracks we’ve created this one is definitely an ear worm. It features a solo guitar battle in the middle between Liam and I, that features our very different but hugely complimenting styles. We never go out to make a particular kind of song, they just evolve into what they are, and this is no different. The only remit was “BALLSY”.
2. Upside Down
The riff had been thrown around for a few months, but we were never happy with where it was going, I added the E minor run and suddenly everything fell into place, Ben went away and wrote the song about the series Stranger Things, like most of these songs, when it comes together quick it feels natural and unforced. We added the stranger things samples in the studio and thankfully, Netflix liked it so much they didn't sue us for every non-penny we have, and gave us their blessing!
3. Scream Your Name
This is unapologetically a huge nod to all those great bouncing anthems of the late 80s, I originally had a kind of Hagar era Van Halen or White Lion-esque kind of sound in my head, but it turned out to be way beyond that due to the modern production and gut punching rhythm section that makes it an insane mix of Hell’s Addiction power and a pop like bounce. I would say this will be the song that surprises a few people in the best way possible. The solo was heavily influenced by Vito and EVH, instead of being a shred fest I wanted to play a solo that you can sing. Music should always have the ability to take you places and this song makes us smile, not in small part to us getting to work with Natalie Taylor on backing vocals.
4. Run For Your Life
The main riff is one I’ve had in my back pocket for a few years, I’ve always loved the Kashmir meets Queensryche vibe about it and from there it was just a case of writing the rest of the story to fit. When a song comes together quickly it generally means we have chosen the correct pieces of the jigsaw and not had to force the song to work. This all made sense within minutes and with Ben’s incredible ear for a chorus melody we have one massive song on our hands.
5. Crying Over Me
This song represents the first time we have ever had to use the rehearsal room white board for anything. It grew and grew from a lead riff in F and mutated into a huge track with different changes that needed writing down so we could all get through. The parts of the song happened in the usual rapid way, but we figured we could raise the bar and make it a departure with a few twists and turns. The final product represents how far we have come as musicians and what we are capable of achieving. I think this will hopefully both surprise and amaze our fans.
6. Your Masterplan
Our second official ballad after ‘If Time Stood Still', for me it’s the song that gives the most goosebumps per square inch, we are immensely proud of this one! It has the feel of 1987 and then unleashes itself into a full- blown rock epic. it probably holds the record for most guitar tracks for a Hell’s Addiction track as we wanted a full, rich, and atmospheric sound with some guitar tracks emulating the big synths from the golden era of the power ballad.
7. Save Me
The way we tend to write is as a group, I was messing around with some drop C sharp riff which isn't a tuning we normally use, and it usually takes another member of the band to say "I like that" in this case it was Luke, so it turned into a very Corabi era Crue type song, very powerful and punchy. Again, the basic song happened very quickly, and it tends to evolve before and even during the recording process.
8. Give Me A Sign
I have a feeling this may well end up opening every gig for the foreseeable future, it certainly nods at pre 2016 Hells addiction. Like Cannot Hide, it keeps things simple and very, very explosive. When writing new songs, it generally doesn't get named until we get to the studio, so it becomes things like ‘the Cinderella tune’, ‘the Heavy One, ‘Stranger Things’ and this one was called ‘the ALMIGHTY’. See if you can figure out why!!
9. Love
I wrote this song with Ben during lockdown. Me had made a video doing an acoustic version of Your Masterplan and figured that we could do more of the same. It’s a simple bluesy kind of structure that I would mess around with at home to solo over. We never actually got round to doing the video for it which turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise, we played it to the band in the rehearsal room and that’s where the huge ending came from. The acorn became an oak tree. For me this was about bringing out my inner Richie Sambora. What we got was so, so much bigger.
10. Playing Chicken With A Knife
A very simple hard rocking song, the riff originally started much slower and in a lower key and none of us were really feeling it (apart from our manager) but, with an extra 50 bpm and a more familiar key we have this slab of driving rock. For me, its beauty is in its simplicity but more importantly its groove. This will make you nod your head and tap your feet. I see it being a real fan favourite.
11. Stare Into The Sun
Sometimes you can get a gauge of what we are listening to when songs are conceived. I was probably listening to a lot of Alter Bridge at this point. The verse riff really lends itself to Ben’s amazing sense of melody and gave us real scope for some great harmonies. The pre chorus has a real hook leading up to the chorus which I feel has a later era Kiss feel to it, especially with the guitar sound. I grew up with non-makeup era Kiss with Bruce Kulick. The guitar sound is a real nod to that Revenge wall of sound heaviness. Ben brought the full Arsenal of his vocal range and melody to this song and made it a huge favourite with us all.
12. Cannot Hide
Simply an 80s rocker a la Kiss and Cinderella, I came up with the riff in the rehearsal room and we tried to make it as simple as possible, it ended up sounding so much better than we imagined which is why it’s the first single, sometimes it’s not about being clever for the sake of being clever, we wrote a killer hard rock tune within an hour, it has a split solo which features a lot on the newer songs as Liam and myself have very different styles and sounds, this way the solos have more dynamic and travel with the song better, it’s like two people telling a story from different perspectives.