Security - Amyl and the Sniffers

Amyl and the sniffers are an Australian punk band and their song security starts out with just drums and then the vocalist Amy comes in for 8 bars and then after that the guitar comes in with a very catchy riff. When the song switches between verse and chorus the drums change loads with sometimes changing the groove to be on the floor tom and sometimes on the ride or trashy hi hat. The guitar chords change between chorus and verse and the solo adds a new feel to this punk song. The vocals on most punk songs tend to be more aggressive and shouty and this has that but also Amy's voice has a unique sound which aggressive but soft at the same time and its probably partly due to the accent.

Punk Anthem

DRUMS

00:00 / 03:04

Punk Anthem is a song I wrote about a woman called Bianca Ali who was handed a £500 fine by South Wales Police after she was accused her of organising the protests outside Cardiff Bay police station following the death of Mohamud Hassan, who died on January 9 after being released from police custody earlier that day. The first part of the song that i made was the drums. I used Logic and made a 1 bar intro with beat 1 and 2 being a 32th note crescendo and then beat 3 and 4 is a 16th note snare and kick fill which transitions into a 8th note groove on the hi hat with the kick landing on beat 1,2,2ee,3,4,4ee and the snare landing on the an of every beat. This groove is used throughout every verse and chorus in the song. After 3 bars of the 8th note hi hat groove i made some Bonham triplets which are 32th note triplets played all around the kit and the first 2 notes of each triplet are played on the snare or tom and the last note of the triplet is a kick and so i made these Bonham triplets start on the snare and go to high tom to mid tom to low tom and then repeat that cycle 4 times and that last 2 bars and it stops with a crash on beat 1 of bar 7. Just before bar 8 after almost a full bar of drum silence the drums come back in with a kick and snare fill and and the another crescendo on the snare to end the intro.

Verse 1 introduces a new groove which is also and 8th note hi hat groove and i starts with the kick on 1 and 1ee and then the snare on 1ah and 2 and the kick on 3 and 3ee and the snare on 3ah and 4 and another kick on 4ee and straight after on the an of 4 theres a hi hat lift and it closes for the next hi hat note.

That groove continues for 2 bars and then it transitions into the first 8th note hi hat groove and that continues for 7 bars and the last bar of the 1st verse is a tasty 32nd note fill all around the kit. The starts on the hi tom and on beat 2 it plays 2 notes on the snare and the other 6 notes in beat 2 on the mid tom and beat 3 is 8 notes on the low tom and the final 8 notes is played on the snare and there is also a kick on beats 1,2,3 and 4. That fills takes the song from verse to chorus and the chorus groove is the same as the verse and also lasts for 7 bars and the fill on the 2nd to last bar of the chorus is a bit weird because the kick lands on 1ee,1ah,2ee,2ah,3ee,3ah,4ee and 4ah and on beat 1 the high tom are played as 32nd notes and are played twice and on 1ee the high tom mis played once with a small rest between 1 and the mid tom is played twice on 1an and played once on 1ah with a small rest between 1an and on beat 2 the low tom follows the same pattern as the high tom and mid tom and the whole structure and note placement repeats for the second half of the bar and then on the last bar of the chorus on beat one there is a crash and drum silence for about half a bar and on beat 3 starts a snare and kick fill to bring it back into the 2nd 8th note hi hat groove which lasts for 2 bars and starts the 2nd verse.

Then the 1st 8th note hi hat groove last for 7 bars and ends with the same fill that ended the 1st verse. After that fill starts the the solo which has a 5 bar breakdown of the kick drum landing on beats 1,2,3 and 4 and on 1ee there is a high tom and on 1an there is a low tom and 1ah there is a mid tom and that tom fill repeats for 5 bars and on the last bar of the mini breakdown there is a snare roll which plays for a bar and every other 2 notes is accented just a bit.

After that it goes back into the first 8th note hi hat groove for 9 bars whilst the guitar solo plays over it and on the final bar of the solo before it goes into the bridge there is the same fill which ended the first verse. The bridge is just the same 8th note hi hat groove that is played throughout the whole song and it lasts for 7 bars and the final bar is the same fill that was used to end the first chorus and there there is a full bar rest and verse 3 starts with the 2nd 8th note hi hat groove for 2 bars and then it goes into the first 8th note hi hat groove for 7 bars and the last bar is the same fill that was used to end the 1st verse and the 2nd chorus and outro is the exact same as the 1st chorus and 2 verse but excluding the fill at the end of the 2nd verse leaving a bar of drum silence for the vocals to end the song.

GUITAR

Owen Tansey played the guitar for this song. I asked him to play to the drums and he played the verse and chorus and I wanted each instrument to have there own time and to be just as important as every other instrument and so the guitar is just as intense as the drums.

The little drum breakdown before the solo was a bit too boring being just drums and so i asked tansey to just compliment the drums enough to create a more impactful build up to the solo which is where the guitar has its time and i gave tansey an idea of what i wanted for the solo and what he made was exactly what I wanted.

BASS

Jak played the bass for this song and as Tansey had already created the bulk of the song, all jak had to do was play along to Tansey and he wrote the verse and chorus and the intro at first and when i heard the Bass for the intro i wanted to keep it just bass and drums because i think it more suits the Amyl and the Sniffers style.

I wanted a different bass line for the solo which Tansey had written and so I asked Jak and what i got i was very pleased with because i think it makes the solo sound stronger and more powerful and when it then transitions from solo to bridge where there is no guitar i think having that bassline in the solo makes the transition perfect for the bridge part feeling like the cooldown from the solo and that is what i wanted.

VOCALS

Jacob Tomlin sang the lyrics i wrote and we recorded it at my desk in the classroom with a Shure SM7B mic and we used a dynamite stick aswell. Tomlin wanted to punch in for the recording technique and i think it worked really well using that technique. i had a melody in mind and i told Tomlin and he just adapted it and I think it is a lot better.

From the original lyrics i wrote only a couple things were changed in the recording process just because we realised certain things work better than others such as how Tomlin says "oh" as the first lyric in the chorus. We also put reverb on Tomlins voice for the Bridge to give the Bridge more of that cool down affect. Also i wanted the song to end on just vocals and the lyrics "soaring high" work best for that and that ending is the part of the song where the vocals shine.