Dubstar: TALKING IN MY SLEEP DEMO

My Yamaha CP-70B Electric Grand Piano. Previous owner not pictured.

Here it is, the first song we completed as Dubstar after reforming in late 2006.

I wrote Talking in My Sleep in Stockholm, January 2003. The idea of getting Dubstar back together was fanciful at this point.  Chris and Sarah were still living together in Belsize Park, but there was no discussion of more music from the three of us. Sarah had taken over the singing in Kate Holme’s Technique from Xan Tyler, which rebranded as Client soon after. I was busy writing and producing new acts…there wasn’t a pressing need to redo the 1990s. After all, we’d only been separated for a couple of years.

So Talking in My Sleep was a ‘songwriter’s song’, a tune that was available for others to use. But as so often happens, it wasn’t used. No one had rejected the song, but the music world was changing fast, or at least my understanding of it. I thought I would simply carry on as before, I didn't realise I had a new job and what that would entail.

Being a pro-songwriter is very different from being the songwriter in a band. If you want to have a chance of your song being ‘cut’ by an established artist, the artist has to co-write the song with you. Or at least have a co-writing credit. That wasn’t the case with Talking in My Sleep, no celebrities had been involved at all so…it remained unused with my repertoire at my publishers Kobalt.

But the song existed, even if no one was singing it, and was ready to be recorded on the day we agreed to get back together in late 2006. It felt good, as if it belonged somewhere between Disgraceful and Goodbye. And after that first session, we had musical confirmation that there was a point to reforming the act. Plenty of reasons to be hopeful.

WE’RE GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER…

As I mentioned on Dubstar.com, we recorded a version of Talking in My Sleep with legendary producer and friend of the band Stephen Hague. That was a great experience, the old team back together. We had Kobalt excited about the new material, we were speaking to our lawyer Paul Lennon. We even had Andy Ross helping us out as our manager (in a sense Andy and especially Jo at Food Records had always been our managers). All we needed next was a label and an agent. Hmmm…

There were labels sniffing around, but nothing from the majors. I didn’t expect there to be any interest and wasn’t disappointed. But I was shocked at how little money there was left in the record industry. Negligible compared to where we were ten years earlier. I knew it was much more attractive to invest in a bright young act fresh out of the blocks than a bunch of thirty-somethings from a different decade. But I wasn’t expecting to be discussing record deals with no advances whatsoever. I couldn’t see the point of signing a deal of that nature when we could license the new material instead and retain all the rights. This meant the new Dubstar recordings would have to be self-financed. Not a problem, I had a studio and was earning, we could do this. But what about everyone else? Would it be fair to ask everyone else to do us a favour, promising a payout when we were back on the road and in the charts?

In the end that wouldn’t matter, the reformation came to a shuddering halt in 2008. Turned out there were other problems to contend with.

THINKING BACK NOW

I remember that I didn’t think Talking In My Sleep was right for Dubstar. It was too ‘normal’, not a large enough statement of intent from yet another reforming 90s act. Was I wrong?

The Electric Grand in Talking In My Sleep is featured in this recording from 1980. Amazing

What you can hear is an early demo of the song, with vocals and guitar recorded in what I think is the first session after we reformed. I’m listening to this song the first time in seventeen years and frankly, I’m surprised how much I like it. I love the fact there’s no top kit on this version, no crashes, hi hats, nothing. I’d bought Gary Numan’s Electric Grand piano earlier in the year, and here it is. This is the first time it had featured on any record since 1980. And that’s a killer chorus…very VERY 90s. And in a good way. Well done everyone seventeen years ago.

But to be fair, sounding old-fashioned was precisely what I didn’t want at the time. Twenty-three years later, why not? With the 90s revival going strong, I can imagine Talking in My Sleep sounding great on BBC Radio 1. Or 2. Or 3. Dunno, I stopped listening to music radio years ago.

And imagine if Talking in My Sleep had been the single before No More Talk, not included on any album! That might have been very cool indeed.

This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com

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