Day 5 in the studio - I’m starting to get cabin fever… 15 hours a day in the same room will do that to you! Today we tracked mostly guitars including acoustic, bass, and electric. I did some acoustic guitar parts in the morning on COME, SING WITH THE ANGELS, RELENTLESS GRACE. I think people might be quite surprised when they hear this album as some of the songs are quite different to anything we’ve done before.

Silas Lee and Joshua Wong both came in to track their parts. Joshua was playing keys on a song he’s written called ABANDON. Great track, but unfortunately he couldn’t remember all the chords, or exactly how to play it… that seems to happen quite a bit with songwriters and their own songs!

Did I mention that this studio we are in has one of the nicest toilets I’ve ever been in? Seriously, it has a full on shower and everything… with mirrors!! I’ll take a photo tomorrow and show you. I think I’m going to have to take a shower here just for the experience.. no photos of that though!

- Tom

Day 2 in the studio - still working on drums. Today Edgar came in to track 5 songs: OUR GOD REIGNS, HOPE STANDS STRONG, RELENTLESS GRACE, TO BE NEAR YOU, NEVER BACK DOWN.

If you have never met Edgar before, let me do a little introduction. Edgar, otherwise known as ‘Egay’ (pronounced “eh-guy”) is from The Philippines and has just finished a 5 year stint as a professional percussionist at Hong Kong Disneyland. He wanted to be Mickey but that position was already taken, so he ended up playing drums everyday to thousands of mainland tourists who have most likely never seen a djembe before, or a man with massive dreadlocks… and definitely not a man with massive dreadlocks playing the djembe!

Anyway, Edgar has been with the band for about a year and a half, and it’s awesome having him play drums on the record. He’s a machine, and he tracked his five songs in about 5 hours which is pretty good, especially for someone who’s never played in the studio before! Darran worked him pretty hard today, which we are loving as he is pushing us all to be better musicians. Over dinner Darran gave us all a verbal lesson in drumming… which was probably fascinating for the other 3 drummers at the table, but made no sense to me at all. I’ve tried to play drums but my feet and hands are linked and will only do one thing at a time (If you only needed your hands to play drums I’d be amazing!!).

Day 2 done and dusted. Drums are almost finished - just one more track tomorrow and then we move on to bass and electric guitar tracking.

- Tom

Day 1 in the studio to start tracking our album. This is the first studio album that we’ve done as a band (previously we’ve recorded two live albums), so it’s exciting to be doing something different this time. Although I love the atmosphere and passion that you get from live worship albums, they can sometimes be a bit stifling when it comes to musicality and creativity. Being in the studio gives you the freedom to play around a bit more with the music and the songs. Having said that, tracking 11 songs in two weeks means that you need to stick to a tight tracking schedule.

Today was drums, and we had Chris into track 4 songs: ABANDON, MORE OF YOU LESS OF ME, WE ARE CHAMPIONS, & COME. I’m loving the variation that we have on this album. There are some great driving upbeat songs, some poppy catchy songs, some darker intimate songs, and some indie folk songs. A great mix, but hopefully it will all come together nicely to form a cohesive set.

It’s also great working with Darran Muller (Muller Creative) again. We worked with him previously on the new version of ‘From Ashes To Beauty’ for the Worship Central Lifting High album. He’s a great guy to work with and has a ton of experience both playing in bands and recording bands.

A great start today. Spirits are high and the morale is good - let’s hope it stays this way throughout. I’ll be blogging daily on our progress so check back often.

- Tom

2009 was an amazing year for The Vine Band. Here are 10 (actually there are 11 but 10 sounds nicer) of the highlights of last year:

We started off the year with an Asia tour, and Malaysia was the first stop. We had an amazing night of worship at FCC, and ate some seriously tasty food. This was the moment we learnt that Chris Mellen likes to sleep wearing a wig. True story!



Singapore was our next stop - 5 worship sets in just over 24 hours! We will be hooking up with our good friends at Cornerstone Community Church again in 2010 (did we mention that their church serves the best fish and chips in the world!!..well almost!)



Manila definitely holds the title for ‘The hottest concert ever’ …and when we say hot we’re meaning it literally! The mega tent was an amazing venue and we had a great time worshiping with hundreds of filipinos. This was also the trip where Chris Mellen wore the same clothes for 3 days straight. Good times.



In Cebu we got to hook up with the rock legend that is Carlos Choi! We had an amazing night of worship in Ayala, with his band Still opening up the night. This is also where most of the team experienced ‘Bangus’ for the first time (google it).



Delirious? live in Hong Kong for the first and last time. We hosted them and opened up for them. What more needs to be said? Epic!



Next we headed up to Beijing to lead worship at the ‘Go ‘09’ youth camp. This was the moment when Michele finally realized her dream of becoming a performing member of the band with her debut on keyboards. Rock!



In April, Worship Central rolled into town. We had a crazy weekend with Tim Hughes and Al Gordon and the rest of the WC team. Look out for the next Worship Central event in April 2010.



In July we went to India for the first time to lead worship at the India Tranformation conference. Amazing to see how worship transcends cultures and languages. We led our first worship set in Hindi with a little help from a local worship leader, and The Bau became best friends with Tommy Tenney! Enough said.



In October we were invited back to the World Revolution Festival in Macau. Mark wouldn’t let The Bau change before they went on stage so he did the whole set in his basketball clothes… rock and roll baby!!



In November the year went from ‘amazing’ to ‘ridiculously ridiculously amazing’ when we had the opportunity to open up for the billboard No 1 artist Owl City. This was the night Tom almost lost his hearing whilst acting as a bouncer and holding back hundreds of screaming girls from Owl City… it’s good to be humble!



We finished off the year with New Zealand’s very own Parachute Band here in Hong Kong. Super nice guys with super hearts of worship. All in all a super weekend to finish off a super year. Super!


Thanks to everyone who has supported us in 2009. It’s been an incredible year and we cannot wait for what is in store for 2010. Bring it!