Dan Peter

For this EP my concept was to record everything with real players in a great studio. This is not a bedroom EP produced on a laptop but it features genuine performances with real instruments and it follows a good old fashioned songwriting approach: tunes with dense melodies and well thought messages.
I have named the EP 'Still Believe' because as an artist you have to face many challenges in order to be able to create your art and to get it successfully out there to the public. In doing so, it means that you still have the calling, the desire and the vision - you Still Believe.
My songwriting and song arrangements are influenced by the late 50s, mid 60s and some 80s sounds. I grew up listening with much fervor to bands like Depeche Mode, REM and U2, only to get a little later into the British Invasion bands like The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks and garage rock, and to chill in recent years to the sounds of Jeff Buckley, Scott Walker and Roy Orbison.
I have recorded these songs with two great musicians and friends: Jelmer Jansma on drums and Sjors Buiting on bass.
Jelmer came in the studio with all the songs well-rehearsed and recorded the drums for 6 songs in one day. By any means, this was a great performance. I made him many sandwiches that day during the breaks between songs.
For his bass parts, Sjors came with some challenging lines, eager not to follow the standard formulas but to challenge and give extra dimension to the songs.
The recording sessions took place at River Studio in Alkmaar where the owner, Rein Wijnja, was kind enough to allow me to record in sessions that went very late in the night. Of course, on the other side of the glass screen was the sound engineer Frank van Yperen who showed lots of patience and music proficiency in recording and analyzing every inch of the tracks I recorded.
The post production of the EP was done at Song Analytics Studio in 's Graveland by Henri Meijer and Don Willard.
Henri managed not only to understand my vision but also to push the songs even further by highlighting new nuances and flavors in the arrangements.
In this process he was assisted by the wisdom and experience of Don Willard who in his long career did sound engineering for the likes of The Beach Boys ('Holland' album) and Ronnie Wood (his second solo album).
When I visited them in the studio after they mixed the first song, Still Believe, Don said to me 'It has the Rolling Stones beat with a John Lennon-like vocals track'. Hell, yeah, Don!