Helix Working On New Songs For Possible Compilation Album

Helix Working On New Songs For Possible Compilation Album

June 12, 2011

Canadian hard rock legends Helix are planning to put together a compilation CD for a fall release. The initial plan is for the untitled album to have five new tracks recorded by Brian Vollmer (vocals), Kaleb Duck (guitar), Fritz Hinz (drums), Daryl Gray (bass) and Brent Doerner (lead guitar), plus songs from ‘When Pigs Fly’, ‘Vagabond Bones’, and ‘Power Of Rock And Roll’.

Helix vocalist Brian Vollmer says, “This could all change if the songs we’re recording now turn out to be so amazing that we feel we should go with an entire CD of new material. There are several reasons I’ve chosen to go with a compilation CD versus a new CD, but it’s not like my decision is based in stone. We’ll see how it goes…

It’s been an exciting week here at Planet Helix. For starters, we were back at A Studios with Aaron Murray on Tuesday for another round of working on the four tracks we’ll be recording in the next couple of weeks.

On the ‘Vagabond Bones’ CD Sean Kelly and I wrote the songs at his home in Toronto and then we brought Moe Berg in on 5 of the tracks to help finish them off. Initially that CD began with other players in the studio (ie. Rob MacEachern on drums) and eventually ended up with the reformed band finishing the album off. We started to develop a process of how to bring the songs from start to finish in the studio on that CD. This time we’ve taken it a step farther by bringing the band into the studio and hammering out arrangements, changes, harmonies, etc. as everyone learns the songs and puts their ‘signature’ on the song. We then record the demo, Aaron does a rough mix on it, and sends it out to everyone by email to fine-tune their parts. Once everyone is ready we then go back into the studio and do it for real.

The four songs we’ll be recording are: “Champagne Communist”, “Angelena”, “The Bitch Is A Bullet”, and “Skin In The Game”. Sean and I have actually had these songs written for quite a while. We put them together right after ‘Vagabond Bones’. Since then we got a little caught up in the acoustic CD ‘Smash Hits… Unplugged’ and also with Helix live dates and Sean’s dates with Nelly Furtado, Carl Dixon, and Carole Pope (just to mention a few).

Courtesy of www.sleazeroxx.com and www.alicecooper.com