Merryweather Stark Wackerman - Cosmic Effect (CD) (UK Import)

It all started on Nov 29, 2019. Janne was in Las Vegas, since he and Neil were finishing up the second Merryweather Stark album “Rock Solid”. While he was there, studio owner and producer, Bobby Ferrari had invited Neil to visit his Skeleton Key Recordings studio in Las Vegas to check it out. At Bobby’s studio, they also met drummer John Wackerman. The three of them instantly hit it off and John, and Bobby suggested that Neil, Janne and John could use the studio and jam a bit, since it was not booked for the weekend. Since Janne hadn’t brought any guitar with him, his friend Mike Varney borrowed him a Gibson Les Paul Junior. Bobby set up to record, and already from the start they could feel this was more than just some regular jamming. They immediately hit it off musically and the basis for the first song, “Judgement Day” was written and recorded only an hour later. That first day two more songs came to life. The second one was an old riff idea Janne had from over ten years back, which he had later worked on with Mikael Nord Andersson (Scorpions, Roxette etc), but it was never finished and finally another idea, “Beautiful”, inspired by southern rockers Point Blank. On the second day Neil, Janne and John managed to get four songs down! “Cinderman”, opening with a nudge to the classic debut album by Montrose, “Live Your Life” where John took the lead, melodic rocker “Gimme Good Lovin”, where Neil had the initial idea and finally “Baby Put The Gun Down”, where Janne drew influences from his love for old Bad Company and Free, but with Neil channeling his inner Billy Gibbons. With seven songs down, Bobby felt we almost had an entire album and said the studio wasn’t booked Monday morning, so they could finish it up if they wanted to. They wanted to! Monday morning, they started out with the songs that became “Down” where Janne had a King’s X influenced idea. Next up was the high-speed riff rocker “Rock ‘N Roll Is My Drug”. Now they only needed one more song, and time was running out. John suggested they just play whatever came to mind. No testing, arranging, writing, just press play and play! They decided on a 5/4 rhythm. Janne started playing a riff and John came in, then off they went and six minutes later they had the skeleton for the song that became “End Times”.

Since they didn’t use any click tracks the songs were what they were. Janne went back to Sweden where he finished recording the guitars, while Neil took the recording to his studio to finish up writing lyrics and recording the vocals. The plan was for Janne to come back in 2020, for Neil to re-record the bass in Bobby’s studio and they would finish the album together. Mike Varney also laid down two guest solos. Then Covid came along…

In January 2021, Neil started having problems with his eyes. It turned out to be a malignant brain tumor. In March Neil had surgery, but they knew it wasn’t going to be a happy ending. Neil had recorded all his vocals, but he never got to record the bass.

Source: Discogs