Born out of an unexpected scenario; Corvus were not formed in a conventional way.
In the spring/ summer months of 2012, four experienced session musicians (Ciaran, John, Nick and Jordan) were summoned to Robannas Studios, Birmingham to provide their services to assist in the completion of a double album headed by then manager of Mad Rabbit promotions Andy Wish for a project known as ‘Wish’.
They spent several weeks locked away in a recording stint until due to various reasons the project had to come to a halt. Following this, the team went their separate ways for a time with Ciaran and John staying in good contact in an attempt to revitalise the ‘Wish’ project going as far as performing the songs in a handful of acoustic showcases and open mics under the ill-fated projects name.
During this time the duo had played with the idea of writing songs together just for the fun of it but it was not until after many a night of heavy drinking and talking at length that they decided to try their hand at collaborating for the first time. With this they both abandoned the ‘Wish’ project and began to pursue their own.
The song writing process that followed was carefree with John in charge of the music and Ciaran producing lyrics; with no restrictions on genre and no clear plan of action, styles ranged from pop, rock, blues, jazz, reggae etc. Though one thing became apparent after some time; their best work came in the form of rock music. John had himself been writing for many years on and off between projects and during his short stint with Welsh AORsters Serpentine had many demo ideas from which to draw upon. Some songs were completely finished whereas others needed to be reworked with new life. It was in early January of 2013 that the duo reached their predetermined target mark of 30 songs and decided to take an 8 track recording into a professional studio to effectively clean it up and to try to gain publishing or label interest with the end demo.
The track in name was ‘Don’t Let the Sun’ that originally appeared very differently to the feel good southern-rock groove found on the finished album. Instead the track possessed a somewhat summer reggae vibe reminiscent of UB40.
Having past experience with the Madhouse studio complex and its facilities the duo took the track into Arkham studios with Alex Cooper as their engineer for the day and came out with a suitable product within a days’ worth of mixing. Very happy with the outcome the duo came away and thought that they would like to create a 3 track demo to send out to prospective publishers in hopes of gaining some interest for their song writing capabilities. The next track they settled upon to take into the studio, after some careful hinting by Ciaran’s fiancé Anita, was ‘Can’t Stop Falling in Love’ – a bluesy pop mid tempo ballad that again was very different to the finished product until Alex got his hands on it and suggested that it be a full blown classic rock song.
The duo agreed and building upon this they knew that they needed a keyboard player and a bass player of which two names came to mind straight away. After a handful of phone calls and some prolific begging, Nick and Jordan agreed to come and join in on the recordings with the team effectively treating the whole event as a reunion of sorts. With the first song completed John and Ciaran had many questions to answer; do they continue writing and recording songs with no clear plan to seek a publishing deal or do they completely pursue the new sound they have found? Would Nick and Jordan be willing to stay on as permanent members and form a band? The decision was obvious, individual responses were instantaneous and Corvus was born.
The name came from a conversation between Ciaran and John about star constellations believing the unknown and downright mystical aspects of the stars to be inspiring enough to garner an appropriate name. Ciaran suggested ‘Corvus’ and John was not convinced by it to which Ciaran supported his case by stating he looks a bit like Brandon Lee from the Crow with his shirt off! – As the Latin meaning of Corvus is defined as a crow or a raven. After further research and Alex’s artistic input everybody came to love the name.
And with that, Corvus decided to pursue recording their debut album – an album that still had not been completely written! What followed in the next few months were a series of songwriting sessions between the writing team in an effort to develop more ideas and form the perfect album that they would be willing to put all of their faith in – Chasing Miracles.
The aim was for something more than an album – a journey that would allow listeners to forget their worries and hardships and enjoy the ride. The title track came about from a philosophical John evaluating his own life and what he hoped to achieve; from there the tagline Chasing Miracles became a motto for the entire band to follow and something to pursue. Being rather naïve and wideeyed to how the industry had fallen it was decided that a simple 3 track demo would be compiled to send out to prospective labels in hopes of receiving support or assistance towards the band’s future. Two further songs were decided upon to keep in line with the sound that ‘Can’t Stop Falling’ had created. ‘Can’t Get Enough’ and ‘Truth or Lies’ completed the 3 track demo as planned and the long hard education of the music industry followed swiftly… They began to send the rough demo along with initial artwork and band photos to a handful of relevant record labels and music reviewers though very little interest would be shown to an unknown band.
The realisation hit them hard that it was not the same industry as it was 30 years ago with the competition to acquire label interest consisting of millions of artists with the Internet saturating the market; therefore it fell upon John and Ciaran to evaluate the situation. With these developments, the team found a gargantuan task ahead of them; they would receive very little to no assistance from record labels or publishers and nobody had rich relatives to call upon to finance the production. It had to come down to working hard at day jobs and taking as much extra work as possible in an attempt to save what they could to finance the next part of the process.
Time would also become costly; sacrificing holidays and days off to spend time in the studio but they had faith in the music and what they were striving to achieve. With the album ready to begin full production they headed back to Arkham Studios in August 2013 where an eager Alex Cooper was readily prepared to take on the project. The recording sessions that followed came quick and fast with guitars, keyboards and bass being laid down within a matter of months (weeks if you choose to ignore times in between sessions.) And vocals followed soon after with a pair of very talented female singers (Marcia Campbell and Emma Street) that John and Nick had worked with on numerous occasions, providing extra flair to the tracks as needed.
The group however, still lacked the 5th member to complete the overall package and that is when multi-talented virtuoso Alex Cooper took the hot-seat and stood in as the drummer for Chasing Miracles – from his past work with Hanging Doll and Shy along with his understanding of the bands motivation it was plain to see he would be able to do the tracks justice.
A brief unplanned hiatus was soon to follow; during this time the group felt the need to draw together an action plan of what they needed to do in order to support a release and stand out by modern standards. This included a music video, a professional website, professional photos, more artwork, and any legal matters dealt with before announcing themselves. They chose to register a trade mark within the UK having heard sob stories from other bands regarding this kind of issue. Final mixing and mastering was done and finally here it is……
