Hey Honey!
Ghost Town
"This one was written before I started Mirrorglass in 2022. I was just having one off sessions with people for fun and trying to get something going. It was this one session I had with Vay where I came up with this one. I remember it happened very quickly. A lot of my songs do. Once I get an idea I just start snowballing into the song and it consumes me and I come out the other side with something great. Those kinds of songs are the most exciting."
"This is probably the best example of a song that happened really fast. I already had 12 great tracks in the running for “Handle With Care”, so I’d scheduled for Jacko to come and record the drums in early December 2024. Then the week before, I was sitting at my keyboard, just practicing. I started playing the chords of what would become “Heart Of Gold” and I got that rush when a song was about to come. Then suddenly, I was just singing the chorus. No thought or anything. The lines and melody came at once. I was actually taken aback. I’d already written good songs but every time feels different. When it just hits suddenly it doesn’t even feel like I wrote it. It feels like it comes from another place, another universe. That night I wrote the chorus, with all the harmonies and everything in a few minutes. I knew I couldn’t sit on this song. It just felt like the missing piece of the puzzle. So the next day I finished it, recorded a demo with drums and everything and sent it to Jacko and told him to learn it because we had to record it for the album. Every song went through numerous changes and tweaks over time, but this one is almost exactly how it was from day one. Except the lead guitar parts and execution of some parts. The whole structure is identical to the demo I made on day one. The solo came together later while recording the final parts for the album. The final guitar line that closes out the song came very suddenly too. I love that part because it’s very different to the types of the parts I’d normally play."
Better Off Dead
"This song almost didn’t end up on the album. It was between this and another song but I decided to go for this as I thought it fit the album better. When “Heart Of Gold” was written it musically opened the door to this song a bit more also. Better Off Dead was written in summer 2023. There are threads in all of the songs I wrote that summer. The lyrics are all connected. I thought it would be fun to write a really dark song and make it sound really upbeat. It sort of represented the place I was in at the time. It was such a high point in my life in terms of music and everything but it was like my safehouse when everything else around me felt like it was falling apart. The main idea came from the line “I’d rather die than let her go”. I didn’t know where to go from there, so I decided to double down on that idea. That then led me to twisting it into “I’m better off dead”. I then just decided to lean into the satire as the anchor. It’s definitely become one of my favourites. It took a while to get it right though."
"This song was written right after the old band split. Those few weeks after were quite surreal. Music and Mirrorglass became my guard against the world and it suddenly came to a grinding halt. That was scary. I hadn’t felt so vulnerable in a long time. Those weeks were full of nothingness and reflection. After a while, I started picking up the guitar again. It’s the only thing I really count on when things go to shit. “Wasted Time” was another one of those songs that just happened. When it did, everything changed. It was the biggest transformation and “face reality” moments of my life. It was the moment I stopped pinning everything on my dreams, and started trying to live each day as it comes. If “Where Will You Go?” is the song about fearing change and not wanting to break out of what you know, “Wasted Time” is the song that finally breaks free kicking and screaming. This song is the real centerpiece. It’s the moment the gloves came off and I love everything about it."
“Crazy Man”, is a song that doesn’t really fit like everything else. It’s very fun to play and, similar to “Better Off Dead” I suppose in the way I wrote it. Those two share a lot in common. I can’t pin exactly when I wrote it but it was written some time in 2023. It wasn’t on the first version of the album recorded in early 2024. It didn’t feel right at the time but when I was re-making the album I decided to re-introduce it. I’m really excited to bring this one out live, along with “Wasted Time” and “Heart Of Gold”."
Where Will You Go?
"This one was special and again it happened in a matter of minutes. It was written in the summer of 2023. The night before was intense. I wrote and recorded the whole song that day. It took a few months before I introduced the piano instead of a guitar thing I was trying to piece together. That happened more than once, where I was trying to piece guitar parts together for a section that just needed keys. Apart from that, it was another instance of a song being near enough the same from day one to now. I had a feeling about the song but I didn't imagine it winning a song contest or even being a Mirrorglass song. I only entered it because I didn’t think it fit everything else, I was doing with Mirrorglass at the time and I wanted to enter something kind of outside of that orbit. I don’t think any of us really believed we were going to win or that this song was going to be different until we stepped onto the stage at the final and played it. There was just something in the air. I’d never felt the presence of an audience quite like that. You could hear a pin drop through the whole performance and then when it ended it was just surreal. There’s a real community about that song. It’s like everyone in the room becomes one when we’re playing it. It always feels like I’m holding a magic wand."
"The last of the trilogy of songs on this album from the summer of ‘23, and the last song on the album, to me, is the kind of song I always dreamt of making. It’s much harder to make a long song that holds you than a 3 or 4 minute “hit”. That being said, the instrumental is 2 minutes long so in a way it’s just a 3 or 4 minute “hit” with a stupid amount of adrenaline at the end. Saying it was written in the summer of ‘23 is a lie because I wrote the chorus in December 2022, but I couldn’t figure out any of the rest of it at the time. It felt like a song for the future. So for the next 6 to 8 months I didn’t do too much with it. Until the time felt right. The song was “finished” in the summer of 23’, with a structure and lyrics but it was still largely unfinished. I wrote the intro on guitar and it never felt right, until I asked our keyboard player at the time to just find the most typical 80s synth setting and play my guitar riff. Everyone knew from then we’d struck gold. I didn’t have a solo but I had bits of it and I waited until we got to Manor Park to get the solo. I just wanted to feel it. When I got the take for the solo it was incredible. It’s the exact same as what ended up on the final album, only with more intensity, more swag and a longer ending. The battle between the two keyboard riffs in either speaker at the end as it fades out was a new addition in the version on the album and I love it. This song remains the most fun song ever to play live. It’s probably the one thing between the old and new band that is universally agreed, this song kicks ass and lifts the roof every time.”
MIRRORGLASS debut album 'Handle With Care' is out 12th September 2025.
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