The genesis of Home

Rob: The plan was to do something different. Steve and I decided we wanted to do something a little less full-on, and a little bit more emotional. Our starting point was the song “Anger” on “Seven”, and we decided we wanted to make an album with that sort of vibe. It would have been easy to produce another album like the first two, but we wanted something with really strong melodies, that would also pull at the heartstrings. And that’s how it turned out, really. One thing I really didn’t want to do was rely on long solos on this album, I wanted each solo to really hit home. If you listen to the guitar on Pink Floyd’s “Final Cut” for instance, the solo might only be 30 seconds long – but it knocks your head off. Every guitar and keyboard solo has to count and stand up on its own merits.

Steve (Reed) and I sat down and decided that we wanted a concept album telling one story, and that it would be set in the 70s. So musically it gave us the opportunity to make it a bit like those warm-sounding classic vinyl albums of the early 70s. We still wanted songs with different sections and moods, but not just with a prog influence, we also drew on early Elton John and even early Kiss.

Steve Reed: We wanted an American feel and to make the music a bit more mellow. We first had the idea of the journey across America, with the idea of then using different moods and textures. Originally we were going to have the main character moving around from place to place – with a track for each location. From there it developed into a double album, all vocal tracks with no instrumentals, so we needed a lot more lyrics, which led to a big development of the actual story. The physical journey then became more of an emotional one.

What's the story about?

Steve: The character has a bad upbringing at home in Liverpool, and decides to get out to find a new “Home” somewhere where she fits in, so she goes to America. When she gets there, she tried to alter herself to fit in with the people around her, and eventually she descends into drink, drugs and prostitution – her old ways. In “Demons” she sees a vision of her dead mother, and then she later sees a vision of her father, which causes her to be hit by a car. After her recovery, she goes on a road trip, where she meets Joe, a Native American, and goes back to stay with him on his reservation, where she comes to realise that what she is missing is actually back home in Liverpool.

Inspiration for the lyrics and the story

Steve: Stylistically, I draw lot of inspiration from Francis Dunnery for the lyrics of “Home”. As many of his songs are drawn from his personal experiences they feel very real, and it’s that sense of reality I’m trying to emulate in home. There are some autobiographical elements, as there were with” Seven” – I’ve certainly had experiences with downward spirals and depression. With “Home” I tried to draw on my own experiences to get people emotionally involved with the story to make it feel more realistic, even though the album is about a fictitious character. Obviously, I’d love for everyone to engage in the story, but if they just like it as a group of songs, that’s fine, or even if they just engage with one or two moments in the story, as long as they’ve got something out of it, I’ll be happy.

On the decision to change from a double album to a single album

Rob: It was weird. I wrote the songs for the single “Home” album as you hear it now, but then I started to worry that it wasn’t progressive enough. I didn’t want to alienate all our fans, so I went back and wrote a few more tunes, and all of a sudden it was a double. However, in the end, with the extra 4 songs making an extra 40 minutes of material I was worried that people wouldn’t listen to it in one play. So quite late in the process we ended up taking out all those songs and making the New York Suite out of them. All the songs on the Home single disc work as a whole, I think. With double albums it’s very difficult to absorb the whole thing, and I wanted the whole album to have the same weight in people’s minds. By taking it down to 68 minutes, I think we’ve achieved that, and peoples’ initial comments have born that out.

Steve: The single album works very well as a single listen, but obviously you need to listen to the second disc to get all story. The whole New York Suite section is a very strong part of the story, because you get the whole self-destructive descent into drink and drugs and the final accident, which leads to her road trip. The beginning of the album, which is set in Liverpool gives quite a lot of detail about her emotional state, and it’s The New York Suite which really does that for her stay in Manhattan, so it’s very important.

Christina: I think Rob made the right decision. Giving people the option of buying the single album or the double, for those who like their prog, I thought was a good one, too.

On singing Home

Christina: I had more of an idea about what the album was about. With Seven, I never sat down and talked to Steve about what the lyrics were about, but with Home I already knew the story, and so I was able to get into the character of the girl, and I was alble to sing it with more feeling and emotion. The first time I heard Morning Sunlight I loved it. It’s got a lovely melody and it’s very enjoyable to sing, and Towers of Hope is very emotive. I always enjoy a good scream, so The Visionary was great too. That moment wasn’t written, it’s just something I did. I usually follow Rob’s very “interesting” demos for the vocal melody ( I must blackmail him with them one day), but I’m free to add my “frilly bits” on – and that is one that just came out. It was quite frightening when it happened, and I had to stand right at the back of the vocal booth, because it keep distorting all the time. It was something I couldn’t control, I either did it full on, or it came out like (makes strangulated noise in throat). But overall I had more opportunity to play around with the vocals a bit. It helps that I’m singing much more confidently now.

Rob Reed on "Home" section by section...

Rob: I was trying to get atmospheres from each part of the album that matched the main character’s emotional journey and the dynamics of the story. So, with “This Life” I started with piano and voice to set the scene followed by a real “kick ass” opening, originally called “Overture” now called “Hurt”. “Moving On”, the second main song, was always called “Elton”, because I was trying to go for that gorgeous vibe Elton John had on his great early 70s albums. It’s got a Pink Floyd-y bit, a bit of funk and a sax solo, which I thought would cause a bit of a stir, but I’ve always been a fan of the sound of the deep tenor sax, which Floyd use, and it can be really effective when it’s used in the right way.

“My Home Town” was the demo I originally recorded. It came out so well, we just kept it. I play the solo on it, and I’d just bought a mandolin, so I put some of that on there and I’m playing my big tenor recorder. It’s very Mike Oldfield, and it typifies the sound I was trying to achieve on the album. “Brave New Land” was originally part of “The Journey”, and originally had me singing on it, rather than Christina, whereas “The Journey” itself is a bit of fun, quite Yes like in places with some nice harmonies. It represents quite a positive moment on the album, so it’s fun to play live.

The first time I heard Christina sing “Towers of Hope” in the studio, it was an amazing moment. She’s singing so much better than on the first two albums – she’s so much more confident and she understands the music so much better, and what we are trying to achieve. It’s a key moment for the album – as the character sails into New York harbour full of hope - and you can really feel the emotion. That leads onto the tracks that have become New York Suite. After she arrives in New York we follow her descent, represented by “Demons” on Home but covered in more detail on the other album. “Demons” has also been in the live set for a while. I love the vibe of the twin guitars. The second half of the track is inspired by a song on the last Oasis album – which I guess will also cause a scandal - and is completed by Chris Fry’s great solo.

One of the last songs I wrote was “Morning Sunlight”. I had been mixing one of the other tracks, and I just sat down with an acoustic guitar, and started playing. The final song is exactly what I wrote then – chords, melody – everything apart from words. The original demo is very similar – me with a single microphone thinking “I’d better get this down before I forget it”. It matched exactly the kind of lonely, emotional vibe I needed – it’s almost like an Eagles song! “Joe” is the longest track,and has the longest guitar solo on the album, played by Hywel Maggs. The middle solo is by Martin Shellard, but again I didn’t want any waffle, I wanted everything to be condensed, and to earn its place on the album, so if something didn’t work we kept re-doing it until it did. Even the bass, which is one of the first things that goes down on a Magenta album, I try to make as melodic and interesting as possible.

“The Dream” is inspired by Massive Attack, and has a really haunting vocal from Christina, and is a great intro to “The Visionary”, which is quite a poppy song – my favourite vocal moment is Christina’s Kate Bush bit at the end, which was a nightmare to record, as it was so loud. Like the rest of the album it’s also pretty compact – I could have extended the solos, but I really didn’t want to do that.

“Journey’s End” starts with a great moment – just Fender Rhodes and voice, and Hywel Maggs provides a really tortured guitar solo. I really wanted to take the album down as far as it can go at that point, so that the next section of the song provides some real relief and becomes much more upbeat.

“Traveller’s Lament” is a solo from Troy Donockley, which sets the scene for the reprise of the “Towers of Hope” theme in “Home” with the final guitar solo doubled by Troy. Again, I wanted that to be full of emotion – the big pay off.

Home Original Running order

1. This Life
2. Hurt
3. Moving On
4. My Home Town (Far Away)
5. Brave New Land
6. The Journey
7. Towers of Hope
9. Arrival
10. Home From Home
11. White Lies
12. Demons
13. Truth
14. Morning Sunlight
15. Joe
16. A Dream
17. The Visionary
18. Journey's End
19. The Travellers Lament
20. Home

Rob Reed

Stephen's Note - As This Life (reprise) was put together especially for "New York Suite" as a sort of conclusion to that part of the story, it does not appear at all in the original running order.