[blogg written by Con Moraitis (aka Moris), guitarist]
In 1988 I was
travelling through Europe with a friend of mine and we arrived in Nottingham
(UK) on a cold October night and could not find accommodation because of some
city event or something that was taking place. It was getting close to
midnight, temperatures were dropping and we were getting pretty anxious with
the real possibility that we were going to spend the night out in the street
and freeze to death, when a taxi driver kindly took us to a discarded old
church that was being used as a shelter for the homeless. It was an eye opening
experience spending the night there among the derelict and the
desperate souls. In the morning I scribbled some lines and immediate
thoughts on some scrap paper and a couple of years later when we were working
on our first Rain Factory songs, some of those words became the title, chorus
and verses of 'Shelter'.
Funnily enough, the
song was almost never recorded. Whilst it became a popular number and a regular
on our live gigs in the early days, for some reason, when we came to record our
first album CIRCUS we actually left it out. It became in fact a last minute,
chance addition to the album. After 2 months of recording, we decided to re
record 5 of the songs again because we weren't that happy with the overall
takes. It was a lengthy, tiring and frustrating all day session and
after finishing them at about 1am, we were all sitting back waiting
for the production engineer (Dennis) to do some technical adjustments. To blow
out some steam, we broke out into an impromptu but blistering rendition of
'Shelter'. Once we had finished playing Dennis jumped out of his seat (yes,
just like the judges in The Voice and the X Factor ha ha!) and exclaimed
excitedly what a great song that was and that we should include it in the
album. To our surprise he had recorded our impromptu jam without
telling us and upon playing it back, we all agreed that it was a raw yet
emotive and powerful performance and too special not to be included in the
album.
Those amazing female backing vocals on the song were sung by Barbara Field, a friend of my sister's
from Sydney, who was visiting and staying with us at the time of the recording.
One night, at home, I was playing back some of the rough mixes of the songs
that we had recorded, including 'Shelter' to Barbara. Out of the blue she
started to sing along with them, and her voice absolutely floored me!! I
couldn’t believe that she could sing like that but incredulously also insist in
the process that she wasn’t a professional singer. I immediately recorded her
on a 4 track recorder singing along to shelter and 2 other songs and
played it to the guys the next day and they were
absolutely stunned with her voice. A week later we had Barbara in the
studio recording her vocals for us. I must admit, that I had always loved the
Rolling Stones song 'Gimme Shelter' and especially the backing female vocalist
they featured in that song and I too wanted to do the same thing one day with
the right song and right singer; that song became 'Shelter' and the right
singer was Barbara.
The greatest thing
about creating music and I guess any art is that particular moment when, after
all the technicalities and laborious processes, you hit a special, magical
part. In 'Shelter' I think that magic was achieved by
the spontaneous energetic performance of the band and in particular
when Barbara's and Chris' vocals collide and then take off in an spine tinkling
crescendo in one of the choruses. I know I still get a shiver down my spine
when hear that part. Those are tough and rare moments to capture in a
performance, but when you do, it's pure gold!
