Hey! Calling Off the Rescue is the third single and video from our forthcoming album Further Afield, out May 31st, 2024 on Ernest Jenning Record Co. We’re quite happy with the way this one turned out because it almost didn’t.

The story of how the song came to be goes like this…

Patrick sketched out the intro/outro guitar lead and chord progression using what was at the time a new app called Acapella which was/is(?) essentially a video based four-track recorder for your phone. The guitar lead melody has a sort of natural and effortless quality to it which we wanted to preserve and maintain for the whole song. Because of that, it took some time for the complete composition to take shape. In its early form it went through several iterations that we were dissatisfied with. They were much mellower and Chris had an entirely different drum beat. Patrick also demoed several acoustic versions at home on Voice Memo, chiseling away at it by trying different chord progressions and vocal melodies, but again found them all ineffective. Because sometimes the best way to keep a song natural is not to force it, we shelved it.

A few years later we were messing around on guitars and drums in the studio and happened upon a chord progression that because of its similar major minor feeling key, thought it might slot in well with the original piece. It worked and in marrying the two parts, the verse of the song became clear, and the rest of composition seemd to come together relatively quickly. But then Covid hit so it wouldn’t see the light of day for another 5 years. Well 8 years if you’re counting.

The track also features Patrick’s daughter’s former high school treble chorus. He had shared a video of a beautiful performance of theirs and James suggested that it would go well on the song. He sampled it, chopped it up and after pitch-shifting and other audio wizardry, added it to the chorus. Despite being unrecognizable from the original, Patrick likes the idea of, in theory, singing together with his daughter on the recording.

For the video, we had been kicking around the idea of capturing us in a live-ish setting for a while. We wanted it to be as natural as possible, and the obvious setting was our rehearsal studio. By shooting it in the studio, we could use the video idea for almost any song and we could shoot it while rehearsing for a live show. A twofer! But… we didn’t know what song to apply it to. As we looked through the track list on Further Afield, it was clear that the most exciting choice from a visual performance perspective was Calling Off the Rescue. We bought a couple smartphone mounts and pressed record while we worked through the song. We think the energy and enjoyment of playing this piece translates well in the video. Hope you do too!

We also made a YouTube Short about this. Enjoy!