Let yourself drift like Mr. Tumbleweed

“Mr. Tumbleweed” is the name of a song, that has been recorded in an international collaboration. But one thing is special: We didn’t know each other, and we didn’t have a plan. Read how this turned out.

There are many ways to write songs with a group of people. But most of them have something in common: You know your people. At least, you know them well enough that you talked about the instrument, the level of knowledge and the style. But “Mr. Tumbleweed” torn the whole concept apart. We recorded this song track by track. Whoever joined the collaboration added whatever instrument they preferred. This kind of collaboration works because of three simple rules:

• One instrument pro person
• Share your information with the group
• Only one person produces the song

I started this project by programming drums. This way, tempo and structure are fixed. The Fishermen & The Priestess added guitars and fixed the chord scheme. Patti Fetz added a synthesizer bass and Cheslain dropped in with vocals and lyrics. The last track has been some synthesizer pads from Floral Tops. I have been the producer, so I mixed and mastered it to a song.

“Mr. Tumbleweed” is about a person, who doesn’t care about rules and liabilities. He lives from one day to another. Maybe a prowler, maybe somebody you won’t like to meet. Nobody knows. We are very proud of our result. My SoundCloud followers were able to hear this song right after production, but now it also moved to my YouTube channel.

I’d like to thank all talented musicians who joined this experiment. It has been fun to work with you and thus, nice to meet you!