By Andrew Baker
Andrew Osenga is the incredibly talented guitar player from a favorite band of mine, Caedmon’s Call. He was also a founding member of a Christian band called The Normals. Aside from the success he has had with these bands, his solo work is also gaining the attention of an ever growing online community that is now in collaboration with Osenga in his solo work.
I met Andrew at a recording studio in Nashville last fall when he was adding some of his guitar riffs for an album that was being recorded by a band that had invited me to visit them in the studio.
For a few months prior to that I had been reading Osenga’s blog about music that he writes almost daily. And that’s where I learned that he was going to be recording a new CD project, and take ideas from his online fans for the songs. The blog announcing the project was posted on May 23. In that blog he said,
Send me ideas for songs, whether they're stories you've heard, a word you think sounds cool, an idea you've wished somebody had written about. Send me paintings or drawings you've made, a photo you took that you can't stop looking at, whatever you think could inspire a song. I'm going to make my goal for this project to base every song off something from you guys.
He also said he wanted to do this project fast, but I had no idea that he really meant fast. The project was released online on June 11th, just a few weeks after it was announced that he would be starting the project. But the speed of recording and post-production is not really the amazing part about this project. Osenga also set rules for himself for this project.
“1. Only one guitar, an acoustic, per song. However, there is no limit to how many tracks of that guitar I can use.
2. The only other instrument will be my voice, and again, I can use as many tracks as I want.
3. No pics.
We'll see if I can keep that up for six or seven songs, but for now it's been fun.”
He also included his fans on the recording of the project. This is something new that I’ve never heard of before. He used a program called Webground, where anyone with Garageband, ProTools, or another kind of web based recording software could record background vocals for a few of the songs. Then Osenga’s fans would be on the project. He said in a later blog that he was expecting three or four responses, but had “received over fifty now and they keep coming in.”
And to top it off, Andrew give credit in the album insert for each person who added vocals on the EP.
So by June 11th, he posted the blog saying that he was releasing this project online. This file includes six MP3s and the insert that should have taken weeks to put together. Inside the insert you see that all songs were written and recorded between May 23rd and June 6th.
Andrew Osenga is not someone who is just getting into the music business with a lot of time to produce as much music as he can. As mentioned earlier, Osenga is in Caedmon’s Call.
He is also a principle writer for their 15th project that is due for release in August. He also is a husband and father, and is still involved in a small group and church, and he’s constantly talking about visiting different studios in Nashville to work with his friends.
He also picks up a solo concert around Nashville or on the road with some of his other musician friends. He is a well connected working musician in Nashville, but still is giving back to his online fans with this project.
This is the heart of independent music. You guys support me to keep making art that means something to us all as a community. Thanks for letting me do this.
Letters to the Editor, Vol 1 can be downloaded from Osenga’s website.