If you haven’t listened to The Raveonettes, I suggest you head somewhere right now and listen to Whip It On, Lust Lust Lust and Observator, then…listen to the rest of their albums. They are, one of the best and most influential bands of the last 10 years. Their principle song writer and guitarist, Sune Rose Wagner also has a great solo career, not to mention his work in Psyched up Janis and Soundtrack work. They are one of our favorite bands and Sune is one of our favorite song writers.

About 1 year ago, I was on twitter and saw a Tweet from Sune Rose. I responded. He responded back. Jokingly, I wrote “Maybe we can get you to produce our next album.” He wrote me a private message and so began a dream. After a few months, we didn’t hear back then out of the blue, we get a message, “Still want to work on music together?” Um…yes!

Click here to hear a ROUGH CUT of a song we recorded with Sune Rose for the Album

We started emailing demos, songs, ideas to Sune and before we knew it., flights and hotels were booked. The anticipation was insane. We were terrified. What if we sucked? What if Sune Rose arrived and he hated our songs? What if we didn’t work well together? What if… what IFF???

Well, the day he was to arrive, the two of us sat in my living room, terrified, excited, everything you can possibly imagine. At any moment, he was going to walk up the stairs to my house and say hello. We heard footsteps…he was here.

We answered the door and immediately, we were comfortable. We first chatted about guitar pedals then we went into my studio and just chatted about our music. Afterwards, we started to record two songs that we were most familiar with, songs we played live and knew inside and out. Things went…amazingly well.

We finished recording the 2 songs the first day and we were amazed how well we worked together and how easy it was. But, this WAS the easy part, we had these two songs ready, the rest were demos.  ROUGH demos. Very rough. We always knew we had the capacity to write a song quickly, but often spent weeks on a single idea. This time, it was different.

That evening, Sune left and we worked on some new ideas, again, terrified that they would suck. The next day he showed up and, on this day, we worked as a three piece. Sune was able to help us get into the music and get our ideas out quickly. It was a collaboration.

We would record a guitar part, tap in a tempo and create a song. Sune would work on drums and bass while we played keyboard, guitar and the vocals/melody. The whole time, he would use his incredible ear for music to help direct and guide us. The songs would just come together. Day 2, 2 new songs. We all looked at each other and just knew, this was special. Over the next few days, we wrote and recorded 10 new songs. We had an incredible time and when it was over, I think all of us were sad it was ending. We wanted more, we felt like we were just getting started.

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Sadly, Sune left Ottawa for New York. We texted a few times during that week, all three of us a little sad that it was over. After a week, we talked again. We asked, ‘Should we do this again, NOW?’

We all knew the answer to this, so, Sune this time drove back up to Ottawa for a second session. This time, we wanted to be a bit more experimental, so wee wrote and recorded 8 new songs in 4 days. From scratch. It just flowed this time, we knew each other, we knew the process. “Lets do it again, then we will dub it.”

There is something special about our relationship, for some reason we just can create an amazing song from an idea, record it, go upstairs to my good stereo and pump the rough mix. I’ve never had so much fun creating music. We worked 8 hours day, but it felt like minutes.

The songs we recorded, in own opinion, are amazing. I think people are going to be very surprised at what we created. Our sound has evolved. Our sound in the new songs is the sound what we always wanted and heard in our heads and we are thankful that Sune had the confidence in us to help us achieve that. I still wonder what it is that he heard in us the first time I sent demos, but after hearing the final product, i now know.

I have no idea when the new Paragon Cause / Sune Rose Wagner Songs will be released, but stay excited. I can also guarantee, this isn’t the end of the collaboration between the three of us. We already committed to more work together, who knows, perhaps some surprises as well :)

I can also say this, Sune Rose is one of the most talented individuals we have ever met. His ear for music, music structure and the recording process is incredible. You can tell why he has written and produced so many amazing songs. It was an incredible experience watching him work.

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