Apr 5, 2010Charity World Cup Song
I can now tell you what I have been working on for the past couple of months (apart from our next album). For those of you who know me well, you will be aware of my love of football.
As you all know, it's World Cup year, and when Oliver and I were playing around with a couple of tunes we hit on something that proved to be quite catchy. I came up with a few ideas about how, and who we should get on the recording and it grew from there.
As is often the case with some ideas, we were told it wouldn't work. Didn't someone say, the greatest pleasure in life is doing the things people say we cannot do!
As the song is essentially about unity, we wanted every club to be represented by a fan and stand together as one team, so we set about contacting every English football club in the Premiership, Championship and Leagues 1 and 2, 90 in total!
After a considerable number of emails and telephone calls, the day finally arrived and we all met to record in Abbey Road Studios on Wednesday 31st March. Now when you get together 90 people who have never met before who tend not to be trained singers, we thought it would be something we'd have to work on to get it right. NOT THIS GROUP, they were fantastic and were so quick at picking it up they finished recording with an hour to spare.
The World Cup is after all associated with football legends so I called Peter Shilton a few weeks before, sent him a demo of the song and asked him to join me. When he said yes to being a part of it, the excitement at having the most capped England footballer on the recording made it even more special. He is such a great guy, and we got on really well. We also had quite a few club mascots that came along too, who all went on an open top bus journey around London before the recording started. From what I can tell they had a great time-all of this you'll see on the music video.
Finding a charity that fit the bill wasn't easy-there are so many doing such great work. When we read the opening statement of Kick4Life, we knew we had found what we were looking for.
'Football and sport and have the power to inspire, to unite and to make a difference. Kick4Life uses this potential to transform the lives of some of the most disadvantaged children in the world'.
Changing lives through football is amazing isn't it, and when you add music, it just grips you. What started out as a bit of fun one evening, getting ourselves in the mood for the World Cup has grown into a national project and a real chance of making a difference. Oliver and I, together with Kick4Life, are now on a mission to raise as much as possible. The single is due to be released on 24th April, so over the next couple of weeks leading up to it you'll be hearing it on the radio and seeing it on TV.
Sorry for the break between blog posts, I will be in touch really soon.
Thomas
