We were honoured to receive a few words from guest blogger Chris Payne who is featured playing his outstanding violin on the song, “What Do You Want?” on EP2 (original release 2011).
“I first met Peter Steer during the after-show party for Gary Numan‘s London O2 show back in 2009 when I was a guest playing violin for Numan.
I remember talking to my ex-Numan guitarist friend (Rrussell Bell) and Gary’s ex-girlfriend (Tracey Adams) who I hadn’t seen for years. Suddenly this guy comes up and is chatting away (and photobombing us) and I thought to myself, “Hmm…Who the hell is this jovial nutter?!” It turned out that he was with this band called tenek and he asked me if I would consider playing some violin on an EP they were working on.
Well, I agreed and a few weeks later his writing partner Geoff Pinckney sent me the files for the song, ‘What Do You Want?’ And in time-honored fashion, I forgot about it. However, Pete reminded me as he hadn’t heard anything from me for a while. So I listened to the track and started working on ideas.
It was one of those tracks that already had a lot of production and so I found it hard to place violin lines. It just happened that I plastered the track with all sorts of runs and melodic ideas. Far too much to be used in all honesty, but it gave them options. I remember rather amusingly when Geoff wrote back and asked if I could play some of the themes, and less of the improvisation stuff as that was overwhelming the track. Strange how I hadn’t thought of that one!
Well, when I heard what Geoff and Pete had done I was very impressed. Gone were all the extraneous notes and in its place was the most fantastic sounding violin arrangement. All credit to them. My bombardment of the track was edited down into a really well balanced finished song that in my opinion is a classic.
I always thought that it was a shame they never fulfilled their potential, as they were a standout band of the time.” – Chris Payne
Photo by Meemz Numancub
“I first met Peter Steer during the after-show party for Gary Numan‘s London O2 show back in 2009 when I was a guest playing violin for Numan.
I remember talking to my ex-Numan guitarist friend (Rrussell Bell) and Gary’s ex-girlfriend (Tracey Adams) who I hadn’t seen for years. Suddenly this guy comes up and is chatting away (and photobombing us) and I thought to myself, “Hmm…Who the hell is this jovial nutter?!” It turned out that he was with this band called tenek and he asked me if I would consider playing some violin on an EP they were working on.
Well, I agreed and a few weeks later his writing partner Geoff Pinckney sent me the files for the song, ‘What Do You Want?’ And in time-honored fashion, I forgot about it. However, Pete reminded me as he hadn’t heard anything from me for a while. So I listened to the track and started working on ideas.
It was one of those tracks that already had a lot of production and so I found it hard to place violin lines. It just happened that I plastered the track with all sorts of runs and melodic ideas. Far too much to be used in all honesty, but it gave them options. I remember rather amusingly when Geoff wrote back and asked if I could play some of the themes, and less of the improvisation stuff as that was overwhelming the track. Strange how I hadn’t thought of that one!
Well, when I heard what Geoff and Pete had done I was very impressed. Gone were all the extraneous notes and in its place was the most fantastic sounding violin arrangement. All credit to them. My bombardment of the track was edited down into a really well balanced finished song that in my opinion is a classic.
I always thought that it was a shame they never fulfilled their potential, as they were a standout band of the time.” – Chris Payne
EP2 [Digital Re-Issue 2020] Available via BandCamp and other popular digital stores!