(The following was written by Greg Holden, a musician and good friend of mine, and sent out to his mailing list. He has kindly let me republish it here. -Alex)

Two weeks ago I wrote a song called “The Lost Boy”. It was inspired by a book called “What is the What?” by one of my favourite authors, Dave Eggers. The song is about a Sudanese refugee who has lost his parents. Happy topic I know. The book really affected me and so this song had to be born so I could somehow pass on my feelings to everyone else. I quickly recorded the song at home and sent it to a couple of people to get some feedback. One of the people I sent it to was a DJ in Holland called Eric Corton, whom I knew worked a lot with Red Cross and spends a lot of time in Africa. I thought he might like it so I saw no harm in sending it his way.

I’m glad I did.

A week later the song was in rotation on one of the biggest radio stations in the Netherlands, 3FM, during one of the biggest charity projects in the Country, Serious Request. Serious Request is an annual project that raises money for Red Cross by locking three 3FM DJ’s in a glass house in the middle of a chosen City. The DJ’s are in there and on the air for six days straight. They are fasting. It’s amazing. Money is raised by people calling into the show and requesting songs, each time donating money for their request. Outside of the ‘Glass House’ thousands gather in the street and watch the show live. They also post their own donations through the letter box in the house. It’s incredible to watch.

Little did I know, but “The Lost Boy” became pretty popular throughout the six day campaign and ended up being the second most requested song of the project, and actually hit number one in the iTunes Singles Charts on Christmas Day.I was invited to the City of Leiden on Christmas Eve to play live in the ‘Glass House’ and open the live, final night TV broadcast on the Main Stage in front of thousands and thousands of people. I can tell you now, that is something I didn’t expect when I wrote the song two weeks earlier.

It was an honour to be a part of Serious Request. I met some of the most incredible and compassionate people that day in Leiden. I will never forget it. This year, Serious Request named their campaign “This One’s For Mama”. All the money raised will go to mother’s in Africa who have lost their husbands to the war and who are forced to raise their children alone, without support. This year Serious Request & 3FM raised a staggering 8.6 million Euros, which will all go to those mothers. It’s truly incredible what the people of Holland give to this campaign and it has really inspired me. I’d like to thank Eric Corton for believing in me, and the song, 3FM & Serious Request for supporting it the way they did and everyone who requested it on Serious Request, or bought the single on iTunes. All proceeds go the Red Cross.

Hope you enjoyed Greg’s story – I liked showing that I wasn’t the only unsigned artist getting huge exposure in unconventional ways this Christmas. Also Greg’s music is amazing – you can visit his website here.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Hey guys! I’m at number 4 in the Official UK Charts right now:

This week has been an incredible success :) Here are some Forever Day stats:
-After ten minutes: #ForeverDay second highest worldwide Twitter trend, Forever Yours sixth
-After two hours: Broke the iTunes Top 100 in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Canada
-After eight hours: broke the iTunes Top 40 in the UK
-After nine hours: broke the Top 20, overtaking Adele, then One Direction and then JUSTIN FUCKING BIEBER
-After twelve hours: broke the Top 5
-After thirteen hours: broke the iTunes Top 100 in America
-After fourteen hours: Forever Yours was simultaneously in the top ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy and eighty ALL AT ONCE on the iTunes chart with all its different versions – we had four songs in the Top 40, three songs in the Top 25, two in the Top 20.
-After nineteen hours: We were #4 on the Big Top 40 chart, broadcasting to 2.5 million people worldwide in the UK.

The rest of the week took hold of itself and rolled us forwards and now here we are, in the UK Top 5 on Christmas Day, with no label :) So I thought I’d talk a bit about my plans and stuff.

First – as a Christmas present and as a thank you for all the support you guys have given me this week, I’ve posted a song up on Bandcamp for free called Jack & Coke:

Jack & Coke was the first song I produced myself (Forever Yours was the third), so it’s a little raw, but I really like it and I hope you guys will too! Click the artwork above to download it or just click right here.

Second – yes, record labels are in touch. Polydor, Island, Sony and EMI. I’ll be completely transparent with you about whether anything happens with them, but so far I’m not convinced I’ll be able to find a label deal that’s fair on me as well as them (which is as much my fault for being picky as it is theirs). I’m going in with an open mind, anyway; it’s fair to hear what they have to say.

Third – at the moment, Epigrams And Interludes (my third album) is being held back because I’m focusing on things song-by-song. I think singles are clearly the future, when you can buy any song on iTunes as an individual track anyway, and it means every song can be a big event with its own music video and its own release, instead of being bundled in with an album. So the plan is to keep releasing singles through 2012 and release an album at the end of it with those four or five songs on, plus some new tracks. In short, yes, Forever Yours is the first single from my third album, but you’ll hear several more before you get the CD.

Cheers guys <3 Best Christmas ever!
x

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

If you like the Forever Yours remixes but haven’t bought them yet, remember they will only be available for TWO MORE DAYS. On Christmas Day they will be removed from iTunes, Amazon and YouTube forever, so if you want them or want to help the cause, grab them today!

Here are all the different versions, with iTunes and AmazonMP3 links for each (buying each version once on iTunes and once on Amazon will ensure Forever Yours stays in the official chart this Sunday – the chart place reflects combined sales of all versions – and remember 100% of the money from these versions is going to charity):

Demo version: iTunesAmazon MP3

8-bit version: iTunesAmazon MP3

All-vocal version: iTunesAmazon MP3

Eddplant’s Forever Alone remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

‘Jack Flash Is Dead?’ Hip-hop remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

Instrumental version: iTunesAmazon MP3

Stefan Chin remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

Live piano version: iTunesAmazon MP3

BillTV-Mickeleh dramatic reading: iTunesAmazon MP3

Matt Maggiacomo’s Dancepunk remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

Alan Lastufka’s Death On The Dance Floor remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

Tom Milsom remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

Charlie Went Mad remix: iTunesAmazon MP3

And of course, the original, available forever (yours): iTunesAmazon MP3

x

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Collating all the information in one place:

The Background
Alex Day – unsigned independent musician, now the biggest independent UK solo artist on YouTube with 470,000 subscribers

The Song
Forever Yours – written, recorded, produced and performed by me, written and recorded in a day. It’s not a cover, an X Factor song, a novelty or comedy song. It’s just a song people like.

The Video
Created by Charlie McDonnell, filmed and edited in five days, 1.5 million views in the next five days:

The Odds
16/1 by UK bookmaker William Hill on becoming the UK’s Christmas Number One

The Chart
A single purchase of the song on iTunes and AmazonMP3 on Sunday December 18th will push the song into the Christmas Number One chart, along with one purchase of any of the alternate versions (links below):

1. Forever Yours
2. Demo version
3. Live piano version
4. Instrumental
5. All-vocal version
6. Lastufka “Death On The Dance Floor” remix
7. Tom Milsom remix
8. Blue Version (8-bit remix)
9. BillTV-Mickeleh remix
10. Eddplant’s Forever Alone remix
11. Stefan Chin remix
12. Charlie Went Mad remix

The Charity
World Vision, who I volunteered with in Zambia – a huge chunk of the profits will go to them. (We have already raised a thousand dollars in iTunes sales so far!)

The Contact
alexdaypress@me.com for all official enquiries.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

YouTube flagged my video, but they can’t stop people watching it if it’s embedded somewhere else.

x

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

My new single Forever Yours is out now – click below to listen to it, and if you think it’s great, you can buy it on iTunes! I’ve also embedded my video talking about the song.

Buy on iTunes

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Whenever my cousin Danny and I are working on projects together in the evening, we will often have a Jack Daniels and coke each to keep our spirits up. It’s our favourite alcoholic beverage and we discovered not too long ago that you can buy it pre-mixed in a can. We have two cans in the fridge right now, in fact.

This is relevant because today I went into the studio to attempt recording the first song of my new album, Epigrams And Interludes. Tom wasn’t there: I was the producer. I thought it’d be interesting to mix the sound up a bit after two albums and an EP with Tom, and I was trying to work stuff out with a few other people, but everyone was taking their time and I get quite proactive quite quickly when people don’t get things done so I just booked the studio and decided I was gonna do it myself.

My first discovery was made last night as I prepared to pick the song that I’d be working on: I didn’t like any of them enough. Even though I now have sixteen songs in varying states of readiness for the new CD, none of them were ready enough to be fixed in one night.

So I wrote a brand new song right there, called Jack and Coke.

We finished the production today, but I’m not getting the file through until tomorrow so I have no real clue how good it is. I’m burning to play it back with fresh ears. I think it’s good – I know I was definitely happy with it when I left the studio – but leaving a thing alone is always a great way to be more objective about it. So there’s a chance it may end up on the album, a whole song, produced by me. And I booked four more sessions at the studio, so things should start to pick up at a hopeful pace. It’d be cool if I can get the whole album done myself.

Anyway, just thought I’d mark the occasion with a blog post. Possible first song for my third album is in the can.

x

EDIT: I don’t wanna say much about the new song but, since people were asking, its two main influences are “I’m Not Okay” by My Chemical Romance and “Price Tag” by Jessie J.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I thought I’d give you some updates on some stuff -

That house what I bought
I’m living with my mum at the moment because solicitors seem to enjoy making you wait as long as possible before you get anything done ever. I never understood those jokes that grown-ups make at the expense of lawyers until now.

Epigrams And Interludes
Nobody can ever remember the name of this. It’s the title of my third album. An epigram is a brief, clever and usually memorable statement. An interlude is something in between two things (in this case, two epigrams) – so the album will hopefully work out as a bunch of catchy worthwhile things with some other bits in the middle. It’s also the name of the middle chapter of Friedrich Nietzsche’s book Beyond Good And Evil. (Some people say the chapter is called ‘Maxims And Interludes’ but I haven’t found a consensus anywhere on that.) Anyway, it’s going very slowly because I’m really agonising over every bit of these songs in a way you probably won’t notice. If you listen to the whole thing and say ‘why did that take so long?’ I’ll have done my job LOL but seriously I wrote Holding On in about an hour and my new song Ships In The Night has taken about a week so far with no end in sight, although I did add a second verse today so that’s progress. I’ll aim to get at least something finished by the end of this year, but whether that’s the whole album or just one track I have no clue yet, so that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll hear it anytime soon.

Sitcom with Charlie
Charlie has occasionally been tweeting about a sitcom we’re writing together. It’s gonna be at least a year before that’s finished, so here is a brief teaser: the main character reminds me of a Buffy character, OOOH chew on that internet

Across The Sea
A song I wrote ages ago with help from Tom Milsom which is OUT TODAY!

Go head to iTunes and download it, unless you’re one of those “I hate iTunes” people, in which case I have provided some helpful alternatives:

a) Get someone on iTunes to buy it for you
b) Download iTunes, buy the song and delete iTunes
c) GROW UP

x

Oh, and there is one more thing … ™

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Click here to listen to Across The Sea a day early :)

x

{ Comments on this entry are closed }