I am just beginning to realize that many of our friends and fans are curious about our lifestyle, how we live our lives, our music and how we come up with our tour. Many of these things seems normal everyday life to me and I guess because I know it, I assume everyone else does too LOL. We have had some questions and curiosity swirling around how the song "Rainbow In The Dark" came to be. It has an interesting back story really. Joshua and I were attending a personal development seminar in San Diego, CA a few years back (November 2015). While we travel we get to meet and have some of the most interesting conversations with wonderful people who lend ideas and perspectives to our journey.
When people hear our version of the song, they always say "this sounds so familiar". Well it should, if you were born during the 1980's or a fan of any of the hair bands of the 80's , you would have definitely heard this original song. Only our version of this song is much different and started with an idea. Joshua was not one of these people that had ever heard of this song until the night in the hot tub. We were hanging in the hot tub, with several other couples. You know how it is when traveling and meeting new people for the first time. There is always that one person in the room that introduces themselves and sparks conversation, right? Well, double that with Joshua and I as we usually divide and conquer when it comes to a room full of people or a hot tub as the case may be here. Joshua began visiting with a lady, about our age, who is an author. She shared with him an idea she had for a pitch she was creating for some New York executives about her book becoming a television show. Her idea was very vivid down to the music she wanted for the introduction of the show. At this point, she had no idea Joshua is a very talented musician and music producer. Joshua was listening very intently to her intentions and thought he could help her with the music portion or her idea although he had never heard the song he had an idea of what she was looking for. Interestingly enough, it was during the personal development seminar that Joshua decided to return to what he had always dreamed of becoming which was a music producer by the time he was 50!!! Now, here we are in a hot tub while he devises a plan to work with someone that needs his musical expertise!!! They both jumped on the opportunity to work together to create this project, exchange information and set a deadline for the project to be complete. The deadline was set for January 1, 2016 for the project completion so they had about a month and a half to work on it. Joshua got to work on the project as soon as we returned home from the seminar. You know how life can interrupt goals sometimes, work, kids and other distractions get in the way. That is exactly what happened here too, testing Joshua's commitment to his dream of becoming a music producer or returning to the comfort zone of the construction field. He was down to the last week before the deadline and he wasn't even close to having the project recorded! Joshua had a singer in mind for this project, she was a teenager and the schedule just wasn't lining up the way he expected it to. The singer he had in mind had a child like, high voice that would be perfect for the project. He was in a pinch and decided to ask me to help him by singing, basically laying down a demonstration track to present to the author for approval, then once approved record it with the original singer in mind. I had only sang in church choirs growing up and a solo part once.....I had never recorded anything in my life....this was totally outside my comfort zone! I LOVED singing and I had never thought about doing something like this before....super scary plus I had a cold!!! I knew he wanted this so badly to go well and I jumped in to help him. The process was really stressful for me. So we set up the keyboard in one bedroom and ran a microphone cord to another bedroom across the hall. He was looking for a deep emotional connection that would definitely be reflected in the sound of the music and match the feel of the lyrics. To reach that emotional place, I sat in the dark bedroom by myself and reflected on some of the darkest memories in my life. With some patience, time and lots of takes....Viola!....the sound track was completed on time! Joshua created the piano track, background strings and used a metronome, a glass with a butter knife to create the sound effects and with my vocals we created a hauntingly, beautiful ballad that originated as just an idea!
The song was presented to the author on time and was exactly what she envisioned. However, it turns out that she wasn't as committed to presenting it to the executives as she said and the project died right there. I am very proud of the finished product! Many might see this as a failure but I believe this was the very first step into this great adventure!!! Whether anyone ever uses this song or not, it is definitely one of my favorites and has my heart and soul intertwined throughout the song <3
Listen and watch the full lyric video here