Editing like this wasnât a new idea, but the way Garth worked created a fresh take on it. It gave the music a pulsing energy that made it sound exciting. The downside was it blew your confidence out the window, because you had to do a million takes knowing you could never match that kind of perfection, which almost destroyed Mark. I had gone through the anxiety of multiple retakes on our debut album, so I could relate to what he was going through.
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Len was calm and introverted; he didnât stalk the stage like an arrogant rock god. After a year, I had to make the really difficult decision of taking him out of the band line-up. That was really hard. We assumed he would be my guitarist, and had no idea it wasnât going to work, and he found it difficult letting go, but we continued writing songs together, including some of our biggest hits.
It takes blood and guts to be this cool,â I said to her, and then we cracked up laughing. I was being sarcastic but the line stuck in my head. Itâs arrogant, a little camp, and later, when it became part of a song, I sang it with a smirk on my face, a sneering top lip and a bored visage. I wasnât sure if anyone caught the irony, but I do remember that was when I stopped reading reviews, good or bad. I wasnât strong enough. I hadnât learnt how to process them. The good ones swelled your head, the bad ones stabbed you in the heart, and sometimes they were so personal and cutting they would take your breath away. Itâs just not worth the agony. Funny, that in those days you could ignore reviews â now itâs near impossible not to know what everyone thinks about you. You can read a thousand wonderful things about yourself, but the comments you inhale into your very core are always the most negative.
It was hard on Mark, because he hadnât actually toured with us yet â he so badly wanted to do a great job. His confidence was knocked but he played brilliantly, like a powerhouse, an engine. Recording that album was pure torture, but the result was that Garth knocked it out of the park and the record took us to another level.
My guitarist Elliot came with me, all ready to work with his beautiful guitar ideas. When we walked into her studio in Burbank, forty-five minutes outside LA, we were stunned. It was impressive, with around fifty amazing vintage guitars in the live room. Elliot and I exchanged glances â what Linda didnât know is that he is a left-handed guitarist, so he couldnât play any of them. Ouch! That did not help the vibes.
Seven years apart gave us a decent amount of time to look back and reflect on our band dynamic and what we had achieved. My perspective had changed â I was much less stressed and better at living in the moment. Iâd been through a lot of challenges as a solo artist, I was better at problem solving and I had lost my fear of the unknown. Everything had gone so well, and we enjoyed putting together the live album so much that we decided to continue and go on tour. This would be unknown territory; we didnât know if the magic would be the same.