Dominic Miller
Guitar
Dominic Miller is where this really all began in terms of realising that Simon’s hopes and vision might actually be achievable. Having spent close on two years experimenting, doing demo after demo after demo and having been through about 30+ musicians, Simon was getting more and more frustrated at not getting to even touch the edges of those hopes.
One particular track called ‘Dance the Rain’ was an early driving force for the project and with this in mind, a production team, musicians and a studio was put together to see what could be achieved. The bass was tight, the drums were funky, but then the production team started to lose interest in Simon’s ideas and decided to take things in a direction they felt more ‘appropriate’. Riffs on overdriven guitars started to appear and all the subtitles of Simon’s original ideas were flattened with this funk-rock steamroller. Isn’t that just shite - when the person with the creative ideas, let alone the fact that he’s paying the bill, is effectively told by his employees that their ideas are better? Simon gave the production team the benefit of the doubt - perhaps they were hearing something similar to Simon, but just needed a different route to get there? But no, it turned out that they were just going for the ‘obvious’. It had funky drums, bass and brass - it must be a funk track then - lets and and make it would like Tower of Power meets the Chilli Peppers, via Kula Shaker! It was once the Fender Rhodes started to get all Stevie Wonder that Simon had to call a halt to proceedings. Listen, Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers et al are all absurdly awesome in their own way, but Simon was not after some in-yer-face-fist-funk formula. He wanted finesse, detail beauty, subtlety and simplicity.
‘Dance the Rain’ had spewed about 10/15+ versions over a period of two years and Simon was nearly at the point of dumping the whole project.
Simon had long been a fan of Dominic Miller, not only through his work with Sting but also with the likes of King Swamp, Pretenders, Phil Collins, Manu Katche, World Party and Chuck Loeb.
Now at his lowest ebb since the project began, Simon called round a few mates to see if anyone had a line of sight to Dominic. After various head in hands moments, Simon managed to get hold of Dom and agreed to get a session together to see what Dom could do to ‘Dance the Rain’. Simon had blagged a very cheap day in Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios in Hampstead to do some string sessions and arranged for Dom to come along in the afternoon, catching him before hopping on a flight to do a Sting gig somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Dominic got the vision immediately. Simon wanted a kind of question/answer guitar vibe throughout the entire track across the stereo field and after Dom said he’d never been asked to do anything like that before, nailed it totally within a few takes. THAT WAS IT! Finally, finally, finally, an inkling of what could actually be achieved. The wisp of total and utter fulfilment and a sense of relief that was completely overwhelming. Just in those few moments, 2-3 years of work had come to a single defining point.
Simon then put Dom out in the middle of the hall with his nylon guitar and did the choruses and the outro. Dom is a total master of the nylon guitar - and he managed to bring a magic to what appeared to be basic strumming - giving it a lift to the perfect place and the melodic passages he played at the end were simply gorgeous.
For Simon, this is where it did all really began. Dominic is a consummate artist in his own right. He allows those around him to feel utterly secure and yet allowing everyone to bring their own artistry to unimagined levels. From this point forward, it all became real and Dominic had provided the spring board for Simon to start achieving his vision.
Dominic Miller plays on ‘Dance The Rain’