Where do I begin trying to explain how much fun we had recording our Live EP. First, maybe it’s best I talk about why we even decided to do one! Stick with me in this blog to hear about some of the craziness that surrounded this recording -*SPOILER ALERT* - It involves a very violent game of pillow jousting…
So, why did we decide to do a Live EP in the first place? As some of you may have seen, we are releasing our first studio EP very soon, which is something we’ve spent a lot of time on trying to make it the best we can for all of you lovely people. A good friend of ours Lauren Hutchinson (AKA The rock fairy, shout out to Lauren), suggested that before we released our studio EP, it would be a good idea to show some more love to our current releases, and I guess summarise the SB catalogue in its current state. Along with that, we wanted to portray how much we all love playing together live, and how it is very different experience than hearing us on a record. We realise that some of you who follow us from other countries haven’t had the opportunity to see us live yet, and we wanted to give you guys something you could sink your teeth into as well! So that’s exactly what we did!
We filmed/recorded the Live EP at “Pealie's Barn” – The STUNNING, converted barn turned music venue that we’ve all been helping open over the last couple of months. It’s basically home for us! It isn’t lost on us that we’ve been blessed with this amazing opportunity to help create something really special at Pealie's Barn, and as well as film something for all you Scruffy’s out there, we felt it only right that we film it here at home, and showcase the amazing potential that this place has, and how together, the band and the barn can hopefully breathe some more life into the live music/touring scene here in North Yorkshire.
On the day, it was a particularly stressful one for me, as I had the job of actually recording the whole thing. None of which would’ve been possible without the help of our good friend Stu, who loaned us his mobile recording set up with some VERY lovely old microphones. So, thank you Stu if you’re reading! The day started pretty early for us, we made sure the stage was clean and ready to go, then once Ryan’s kit was set up, I began micing everything up and trying to hide the mountain of cabling as neatly as I could around the side of the stage, as this was being filmed after all! We then spent the afternoon thoroughly sound checking, as I ran back and forth from the desk to the stage making sure the mic placement was right and it was sounding beefy! Eventually, we were all sorted, and everything was good to go!
It was a long couple of days for all of us, with Ryan & Georgy at work for most of the day whilst me and Sass were sorting the stage out, they had to continue working as soon as they got home! So, bless those dudes for constantly going at it – Georgy, Ryan & Sass always work so bloody hard with everything they do, blessed to be in not just one, but now two amazing ventures with those guys now we have the barn to work on too!
Luckily, a good friend of ours Jay Danter (Who recorded & mixed our first single “Water”!) came to the show and manned the mixing desk for me whilst I was playing with the guys on stage – So Jay if you’re reading, thank you so much for your help on the night. Having you there really helped, and we were all so glad to see you again after so long! Audio stuff taken care of we all went back over to the house to begin to get ready for the show. Or at least we tried to… Georgy managed to lock us all out of the house and didn’t bring her keys out with her! Luck must have been on our side that night however, as that was the one time I’d left my bedroom window open. So, fuelled by Budweiser, I quickly threw the ladders up and climbed in through my bedroom window! Definitely not knocking everything off my windowsill and spilling a half drunken cup of tea all over my bed (which I didn’t even realise I’d done till the next morning!). Still, all was well, I went and unlocked the door, and we began preparing for the evening’s festivities.
Speaking of festivities, we had more than just music on that night. The barn has its own pizza oven, which makes us all very happy… especially me as I am genuinely addicted to pizza. Seriously. It’s a problem.
All of our guests got a pizza after the gig, and with being our own private little shin dig, it meant that we got to spend some quality time with all our closest friends/family/fans, which for us was just so nice! And I hope that all of you that came by that night, enjoyed it as much as we did! Having you all there was great for us, and the Live EP as a whole was a way we could give a little back to all you amazing people for supporting us with what we do. You guys seriously mean the world to us!
Besides incredible pizza, we also had fire spinning when it went dark, performed by our friends Rhys and Lekia. Those guys did a great job and was a really nice way to round off the night with some festival vibes, that really added to the whole evening.
Show time finally came around – and we had a bit of a huddle in the green room before we went on stage. This was the peak of roughly two months solid work and prep for us, and we were all stressed to fuck! But as per usual, we reminded each other of why we do it, and got ourselves psyched for the gig!
The show itself went really well – playing at the barn was incredible and seeing all our guests enjoy not only the show, but the venue itself was really rewarding for us. We got good n sweaty and made some noise for about an hour, and luckily everything went smoothly, and we got everything we needed to film the EP! I’ll take this opportunity to mention the incredible Sam Edge who shot all the videos and photos of the event! Go check out Sam’s work on Instagram, he’s amazing and so great to work with!
@samedgephotography
Overall, we had such an amazing night, and we were so happy to have put on a private show for our nearest and dearest – it was genuinely so good to have that time to play a show and spend time with everyone after the shite that 2020 threw at all of us. if you’ve made it this far down the blog – Thank you! Your reward is a video of our good friend “Pealie” (The owner of Pealie's Barn & all-round legend) and Ryan beating the shit out of each other over a friendly game of pillow jousting the next morning! Because what rock band doesn’t do that when they’re hung over with a farm all to themselves? I know... we’re weird.
Thank you for reading if you made it this far! And thank you to everyone who came to the filming of our Live EP and made it such a great night! We had a blast and is hopefully the first of many Scruffy Bear shows at Pealies Barn! The EP is out now!! Be sure to go give it a watch/listen/share!
Love to you all xo
Jack \m/