How Joe and his band 'Lunar Baboon' write their songs.

by Lunar Baboon (written by Joe J.)
(County Durham, UK)

Of course, this is just how our band write songs, and naturally, only you can find what works for you, so I'm hoping that by sharing our wisdom, it gives you a few ideas to experiment with.

Our band do both covers, and create our own origional content, through a wide and open-minded spectrum of genres although generally, we try and steer clear of anything as 'heavy' or 'heavier' than metal.
When creating our own songs, ususally, the rest of the band play some random chords, on guitar, then, unless you're talented, and depending on how many members and what instruments your band play etc, the bass plays the basic root notes to each of the chords and the bass line can be left alone to elaborate later on. Then, our drummer plays at first a simple beat, and IF NESCESSARY (sometimes, a simple beat is just a better beat to fit with the song)can elaborate at a later stage.
Then when all of the band has decided on what they're playing, the structure comes together, i.e intro? verse chords/riff, chorus chords/riff - if they're any different to the verse?. Bridges, transitions, solos e.t.c can be added later if desired.


As a singer and lyricist, I listen to the guitar chords/riff and write down lyrics. The lyrics I write down are swayed by a huge number of things. Such things include: what mood I'm in at the time, how I feel about various aspects of things, my opinions on things, the song itself (i.e is it a 'happy sounding' song etc), any input from the band and many other things. Ultimately anything you want to express, don't be afraid to express it - that's what can give your band some orgionality if that's what you're looking for.

Personally, I think the easiest thing to write about is love, and I dislike writing about it simply because I'm cold and secondly because personally, I think it's ludicrously overdone. Of course - if that's your thing, or you can't think of anything - go for it! It's about compromise.
For me, one of my idols are The Smiths - they didn't screw around with pop, and sang songs that were true, however harshly real it may have been back in the pop obcessed 80s.
I don't worry about rhyming and swearing - lyrics don't need to rhyme at all, although sometimes, it may sound much more fluent when words rhyme. If you swear excessively, it CAN (not nescessarily) narrow your audience and deter some. If it's death metal, and that's your audience, go for it, but if it's blues, no heavier than 'Shit'...

Remember, to continually jam through the song as you're building up the song, like for exapmle to try a section of lyrics, or for the bassist to try out a bass riff, a soloist to try a solo or a drummer to try out a fill e.t.c.
Start basic, then build, and build gradually. If something doesn't sound right, consult the band and alter it, in increments. Also, persist - if something isn't working, don't scrap the entire song, seek out where the problem is - if the drum beat isn't appropriate - alter it, if the riff isn't right - alter it and so forth.


Anyhow, I hope I didn't bore you all too much... so if you got this far, thanks for reading this and I hope it might have given you at least a small amount of help.

Joe {{Lunar Baboon}}