Track dissections... Moats' Matt Duncan with "Gas"

While in Belgium the lead singer and charmer Matt Duncan made a diary for us, towards the latter half their tour it started to get heavy. He took some time out in a recording studio to write and record a new track! Read him speaking about it below.

The track is out 'Track of the week' this week too!

We actually got given a free recording session where we recorded the radio show. It was done last minute in terms of recording with just an SM57 microphone on the guitar amp with an SM58 microphone on vocals. With the actual recording of the tune I wanted to keep the production very stripped back with just guitar and vocals being recorded. In terms of the mix and master that was done by will Elliot (our bassist) and a helping hand from me.

I sampled a part of the vocal take and put a fancy reversed reverb plug in on it and turned the dry signal down so it gave it an early effect. I also used the same sample and put a delay plug in on it further on in the track. Will did the rest of the mix (distortion on vox, reverb on vox.) the guitar mix was quite untouched I think as the amplifier I used (can't remember the name of it as I borrowed it off a friend in Belgium and was quite an obscure brand) had a lovely distortion sound to it as well as a great reverb, it was just a combo amp but I was really happy with the tone it created as well. In terms of the song-writing I wanted to write a song with a very heavy distorted rhythm guitar but have a vocal melody that was very eery and beautiful in some sense, clashing the two together so to speak. The lyrics are actually about a house party in Leeds and how.

It's called gas because of the amount of laughing gas balloons people do there and about how I used to enjoy doing them too but now do not like the idea of it ("I've had my laughs but I've had my last") I also mention about a boy who fell through 2 flights of stairs at a house party in Leeds I was at and it caused a massive commotion."

Moats Belgium Tour Diary: Day 3 - 14th April 2014

It's day 3 of our tour in Belgium, I woke up at around 2.15 pm because I watched too much Sex and the City last night with Will for too long. It didn’t look as sunny as it did the night before but we still wanted to get out and see what was crack a lacking. Nathan wanted to get his sister a shot glass from a local shop so we went and got him one of those and made another trip to the supermarket to grab some munch. We were planning to leave the house at 6 O'clock because we had a gig that was an hour drive away. The gang from Belgium got us a mini tour bus and we got our stuff packed in the back and were ready to go. We listened to James Blake on the way there and drank loads of beer. I was drunk before we even got out of the van. Classic.

Tour Van : - )

We got to this big beautiful market street with loads of cafes and thousands of chairs outside them. It was quite the spectacle. The venue was called Café Belge and was known for selling great beer. We got given some tokens and were advised on what beers to drink, they had a menu filled with 60 different varieties of beer and even sold beer cheese. Woah. The venue was a nice relaxed place and there was quite a nice turn out in terms of the amount of people. We all went to grab some munch before the gig and I got myself a Doner Kebab but the meat actually tasted like dinosaur ham. I still went to town on the bad boy and ate it like a champ.

Dinosaur Ham Kebab

We then returned to the venue and did a sound check where we already had people bobbing their heads to us and watching us play. We came off stage and then chilled for a while before playing. The time then came for us to play and we had a similar set list as last time but we added in our old track “Skin”. It was a good set and we all moved our booties on stage. It was then planned that a dj would play for an hour and then we’d come back on stage. This was a bad idea. We were all pretty smashed (some more then others) after the DJ’s power hour of classic rock tunes and we were told to play a lot quitter then before. We went on stage not really knowing what we were playing but we started with “Show”, played “Toothache” then “Absorb”, “Glue” then “Fortnight”. James was so drunk I couldn’t believe it. We had a jam at the end of fortnight and I actually walked off stage for a good 20 seconds before he stopped playing. It was so funny. We then started to get our party on and met some British dudes who were also on tour called “NeonFly”. They were sound as a pound. We then got in the van back to Ghent where I threw up in a bag and a little bit on Nathan's shoe. It was all good fun though.

Cheese Beer.

Moats Belgium Tour Diary: Day 2 - 13th April 2014

Moats in Belgium - Day TWO - In all honesty this day was a massive, juicy, tremendous chiller but we still managed to achieve some productive stuff but nowhere near as hectic as day 1. It started with me waking up at around 11 am and putting on Mac Demarco’s new album, “Salad Days” to wake up the rest of the lads to.
 

Ghents River

 I whipped open the blinds and saw that it was a scorcher. I didn’t even feel hung over. The rest of the geezers didn’t look too bad either. Pyrah and me went for a walk down to the shop to go grab our groceries for the next few days, which involved cornflakes, bread, meat and loads of pasta. I was planning to get myself some tasty fruit squash but to my surprise it appears that fruit squash isn’t a big thing in Belgium. What a disgrace. I just got me some bottles of diet coke instead. 

Some interesting magazine

 

Nathan found a waffle and he didn’t even want Nutella on it.

As it was a nice day when Pyrah and me got back we insisted the other two should get up and enjoy the sunshine. We popped on our shades and got jiggy with it. We walked all around the beautiful city of Ghent and took some snaps; we were being proper tourists. We also grabbed some of the tasty fries and a few burgers from McDonalds. It was sweet. I started feeling quite creative after walking around and seeing so much so told the lads to come back to the gaff to write some tunes. Everyone was throwing ideas left right and center and we ended up writing two new tunes that we were all very satisfied by. We also had ideas to chuck in to other new tunes. After I cooked me up some pasta and the others ate some pizza, we had a few beers and were gunna go out to see a band play just down the road but we kept the creative juices flowing and carried on having a jam. This kept going on until the night fell. Pyrah jumped in bed and the rest of us sat by our laptops watching Sex and the City till we fell asleep. Not too bad a day to be honest. Just a chiller.

They love it. 

Moats Belgium Tour Diary: Day 1 - 12th April 2014

It was an early start to a long day ahead. I got myself up at 5 am after falling asleep the night before at 11 pm or so. However, despite the time I felt completely functional and healthy, this was probably due to the fact that I was just dead excited to get out of the UK. I got myself to London Victoria coach station and met the rest of the boys who all looked surprisingly fresh. We jumped on the coach and set off. The coach left Victoria at 9 am and was due to arrive in Brussels at 4.30 pm. The coach journey itself was surprisingly comfortable and we were all falling in and out of sleep throughout despite the fact there was a screaming kid right in front of us.

Nathan, James and Will on the coach.

There was a sense of relief when we saw ourselves arriving into the vibrant city of Brussels on the Coach, we couldn’t wait to get a breath of fresh air because by now the coach smelt like moldy hamburgers and sweat. It weren’t too tasty to the nose. We met our good friend Fien (Lead singer of band, “I Will, I Swear”) as we got off the coach and she directed us to the train station in order to get ourselves to Ghent where we’d be staying for the rest of our tour. After a 30-minute train Journey from Brussels we finally made it to Ghent. We got picked up by more friends, Flore and Thomas, who then took all our gear and us to the flat we’d be staying in. We had a quick look around the beautiful city of Ghent and bought ourselves some beers.

Some graff on a train at Brussels Station.

A lovely piece of architecture in Ghent.

We got the beers.

After a nice chill and dropping off all our gear at the apartment we were staying in for the rest of the tour we got dressed and started preparing for the gig we were playing on that night. After meeting another one of our friends Pieter we decided to set off at around 7.45 pm. We got to the Venue at around 8.30 or so and brought in our equipment. We were all welcomed very politely by everybody and were given free beers for the night, which was beautiful as we had a very large selection of tasty Belgian beers to choose from. We also even got two massive, juicy pizzas to eat before playing. The first band that played were called, “Simple Pigeons” and they were a fun band to watch with the guitarist switching between playing guitar and hitting a tom drum along with them doing an impressive cover of Miles Kane – “Come Closer”. I wrote our set-list on the back of beer mats and then we were welcomed to the stage by the front man despite the fact we still had to set up all of our equipment and have a quick line check.

The set-list.

It was quite a nice turn out with some familiar faces in the crowd from the last time we visited Belgium, we were also all a little bit tipsy from the free beers. We got on the stage and had a quick line check before I introduced us to the Belgian crowd. We opened with an unreleased track called “Rough” in order to give them an insight in to the new material we were working with and the show went on from there featuring sweatiness and my blabbering drunk mouth, the crowd seemed to enjoy it though. We finished the set without playing “Absorb” for some reason but were asked to play a few more tracks; we then played “Absorb” and “Fortnight” which included a improvised jam at the end which was actually surprisingly impressive and we were all chuffed with it after playing. We came off the stage sweating with a belly full of beer and pizza and were now ready to party our socks off. Some tunes were put through the PA system on I Phones and we all had a jam including us playing some deep house dance tunes, we enjoyed ourselves. Considering it was free beer we all got pretty steaming and had a great time dancing about with Belgian friends.

The stage.

Us playing.

Party time.

After the gig it was decided that we would go out in the centre of Ghent. We were already drunky wunky as heck. On the journey to Ghent Will needed a wee wee so bad that we had to pull over for him. We got to Ghent and stumbled out of the car, I paid 5.60 for a beautiful Hamburger and Fries and then went to meet the boys at a bar where we were buying more drinks. Pyrah and Nathan overdid it a little bit and needed to head back to the apartment before the rest, me and Will then followed an hour or so later to get into our beds where we’d sleep for the night. The next day was Sunday and nothing was planned. Considering we had a pretty hefty day we were pretty excited to have a nice lay in. The first day in Belgium was a big success and we were excited for the rest of the trip.