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It takes a certain kind of youthful naivete and nerve to track down your favorite singers and ask them to sing on your album. Four years ago, that's exactly what an unknown musician named Daniel Victor did. He was just 21 and fresh out of university.
During the following two years, not only did the Windsor, Ont. resident end up with a co-write ("On Fire") on Switchfoot's now double-platinum 2003 album, "The Beautiful Letdown, but gathered some major names for his own dream project, "Neverending White Lights - Act I: Goodbye Friends Of The Heavenly Bodies."
Contributors include:
311's Nick Hexum, Switchfoot's Jonathan Foreman, Hum's Matt Talbot, Ours' Jimmy Gnecco, Deckard UK's Chris Gordon, The Velvet Teen's Judah Nagler, Mogwai (instrumental), Our Lady Peace's Raine Maida, Shudder To Think's Nathan Larson, Starflyer 59's Jason Martin, Finger Eleven's Scott Anderson, Supergarage's Marco Defelice, Cirrus' Steve Barry (Cirrus), Todd Kerns, Creeper Lagoon's Sharky Laguana, and Bif Naked.
"Everybody on the record is 100 percent in support of it and happy to be a part of it," says Victor, who recently tapped Alexisonfire's Dallas Green to work with him, while he's awaiting a record label to step up with a distribution offer.
Victor will perform at Toronto's Mod Club tonight (December 10) with special guests Maida and Anderson (with whom Victor now shares the same management team, Coalition Entertainment,) and Defelice.
"We need a label who really understands," says Victor. "It's tricky to find NWL a home. Everyone loves it, but they're scared of it. No one takes risks anymore - they all want formulated pop music. It makes me sick actually, considering the beauty of this record and the immense talent that's on it. I thought it was a no-brainer, but labels have lost their way.
"And really, the masses are the ones who suffer. They grow up with their taste in music pre-selected by the radio. Only a few indie or left of centre artists really get the credit they deserve. Once we jump into bed with a label, we also have to consider the longevity of NWL. This is Act I, but there will be many more albums in the series, each with a new set of artists, for as long as I'll be able to put them out."
A multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer, Victor is also working on a solo album. "I kind of wanted 'Never Ending White Lights' to be an introduction to who I am on a bigger scale than just putting out something that went unnoticed," he explains.
"Neverending White Lights - Act I: Goodbye Friends Of The Heavenly Bodies" was self-produced at Victor's studio, The Wave, in Windsor (except for the contributions from the other artists). He wrote or co-wrote all the songs and plays an impressive assortment of instruments (and found sounds) on the album - piano, Rhodes, electric and acoustic guitars, e-bow, bells, synths, mellotron, organ, strings, bass, live drums, percussion, coins, vacuum cleaner, and effects of all sorts.
While there are different vocalist, there is a cohesiveness to the project, melancholy and sombre, yet still melodic. The lyrics are about death and spirituality.
"I wanted to stay away from anything that had to do with love or relationships. I wanted to take things more seriously," says Victor.
"I couldn't control the artist," he adds. "I didn't want to limit their creativity so I told them the album had a spirit and a vibe to it and a consistency and a feel, but I told them to just go ahead and do their thing."
Born in Windsor, Victor's father, Jack Genaro (the co-executive producer of NWL) had a variety show in the mid-'70s on CBC called Music Makers, and went into the home recording business in the '80s, working with various local artists. The house in which Daniel grew up and still lives has a "pretty incredible" studio, The Wave. The father-son team also have a record label called Ocean. "I partnered up with him and started working on my own stuff that was a little bit hipper I'd say, but basically I've had full access to the studio," says Victor.
While Victor has never toured, he drummed in a few bands in high school, then started a trio in university called D277, which he fronted and had the opportunity to open for Moist, Matthew Good Band, Holly McNarland. "I was never happy with what I was doing," Victor says. "Even though I had demoed an album with my rock band that I was going to shop, I thought, 'I can do one better than this, than being just another rock band among millions.'"
The NWL project started with a piece of music that was different than anything he had previously composed. Entitled "Goodbye Friends Of The Heavenly Bodies," - and not included on the current track listing - it was supposed to feature Cinjun Tate of Remy Zero, but they never get around to working together, but while he was waiting for it to happen, he came up with the NWL concept of composing an album with various singers.
"I started recording and writing 'Neverending White Lights' the very first day after I graduated university. It was the first thing I decided to do with my life," says Victor, who hasn't had a job since and lost 50 pounds due to the stress of the undertaking.
"I just sent out a lot of email, emailing whoever I had to, whoever had a contact at the web site for the artist, even the web master, or their manager or sometimes, fans site. 'Can you get me in touch with this person? Let this person know that I'm working on this album.' I think what was appealing was once some of the artists saw that I had a couple of artists that they liked or admired."
He next contacted Jim Atkins from Jimmy Eat World, who got too busy, as did Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol.
Still plowing on, when Victor contacted Nick Hexum's manager, Adam Raspler of Raspler Management, he received the response most would expect. "You know, it's good that you can put this record together, but I'd be surprised if it happened. As for Nick Hexum, he's a very busy guy and he doesn't have time to do things like this.'"
Admittedly, Victor "pushed and pushed" and finally said Raspler pass on the song to Hexum.
"Nick got the package and I was actually at the movies (in line for popcorn) and my cell phone rings and it was Nick Hexum. He was on tour with Jay Z, calling from Las Vegas, and he's like, 'I got this song. This is what I'm going to do with it, and he was trying to sing to me over the phone.' And I'm like, 'That's incredible.'
"And I knew right there that I had something, that he was going to be on it, and I could go somewhere, but I didn't want to just stick to the popular artists because most of my favorite bands are more indie."
In October, 2001, he cut "Breathe" with Supergarage's Defelice, then in Nov. went to L.A. to record "Throwing Chairs" with Switchfoot's Foreman. The pair also wrote "On Fire," which Victor felt was "too sugary" for NWL, but Switchfoot had signed with Columbia and Foreman wanted to include it on "The Beautiful Letdown."
"It's funny how things work out because the money that I've made from the royalty cheques allowed me to finish the record," says Victor, who was fortunate that many of the artists had home studios of their own or were conveniently in the studio, but he still needed money to cover express mail-outs, long distance phone calls, trips to L.A. and Toronto, and mixing by Larry Thompson.
In October of 2002, he had five songs in the can - Hexum's New Order cover, "Age Of Consent;" Foreman's "Throwing Chairs;" one by the Unbelievable Truth's Andy Yorke that he didn't end up getting permission to include; plus two that he had sung on that he was waiting to give to other people. With those names involved, a Windsor-based concert promoter and friend of Victor's, Todd Shearon, contacted Coalition.
Lanni was intrigued, and not only got Maida and Anderson involved, but was interested in taking on the project. He asked Victor if he could get a few more songs done, so Coalition could shop seven or eight to labels.
"I tried to explain to him how it was tearing me apart to do everything myself because I was engineering, producing, performing, plus contacting all the artists," recounts Victor. "I was doing so much. It was pretty stressful and I was worried about running out of money so I did my best to get seven songs and then he said, 'Well can you get 10?' I said, 'Okay.' So I got 10.
"Then Rob told me to finish it. He said if you can finish it on your own budget without getting money from the labels, you're in a way better position because you'll own everything and you'll be in control. So I went for it and I finished 14 or 15, and in between last September and now, while it's been sitting around, I added Bif and Jimmy."
Victor has been to L.A. twice for meetings with Universal affiliated label, Strummer (Mars Volta, Le Tigre, the Rapture), and has met with some Canadian majors. Lanni was also in Europe talking with labels there. Another option for Canada could be Coalition's eponymous label through Warner Music Canada (Waking Eyes is on the imprint).
While there were some submissions that didn't work out (either the artist didn't understand the project or were making funny demands), this young guy's wish-list of contributors essentially panned out, and continues to grow.
"It looks like we're adding new tracks, and a few new artists of who's names I can't mention just yet," says Victor.
'There's also a new song we just finished recording, which will be the second single off the record. We're finding a vocalist for that. The first single I will be singing, and that song is in the works now. We're looking at finishing the track-list by end of next month, so that in January, we're ready to go."
Lanni says there's been a flurry of interest from numerous labels. "We're in a time period where we have labels that are going through transition periods, like Sony-BMG, and this type of album isn't suited to a lot of rock labels. We had some interest from a U.S. company and we're really close, but now we've got to wait for the next fiscal year to kick it.
"When this is pitched to an A&R department, they're immediately thinking how are we going to get a band to go tour this, so our initial pitch has always been on the marketing side. This is more of a soundtrack in search of a film n to use a quote that I saw once before. It needs film or some TV, a la Moby, something else to carry it. But in the last little while, Daniel's been doing some writing.
"We'll still keep it as 'Neverending White Lights,' but there may be a radio single that we will add to this record that will be co-written by one of the stars or another person to give it some other spin. He'll sing it.
"And the answer to a lot of the A&R person's question, 'How are you going to tour it?'" says Lanni, "Well, he's the voice of 'Neverending White Lights, but in any situation, we could be in a city and Jimmy Gnecco could show up or Raine Maida or Scott Anderson, that kind of thing."
Just check out the show at the Mod Club tonight.