After the first convulsive period of the band, divided between a very dense live activity and numerous line-up changes, The Sky “came to life”.
It’s the beginning of 2003, while the band was planning the presentation of the album, another nuisance was popping up from the corner: Secco needed to leave the band.
Some opportunities don’t come twice in a life and the decisions need to be taken in very quick time. Result: the band had to face a unexpected umpteenth drummer change.
But this time, everything fitted as better as couldn’t be thought.
From here we can define the beginning of a band’s period similar to the “high middle age”.
A confused period where every step forward and progress made were limited or cancelled by other line-up changes.
The band just survived a lot of line-up changes in the first years, but there were only projects to bring to life, that time agreements to respect, with all the pressure behind them: the label liked “The Sky” so much that fixed the “1+1” agreement (1 album guaranteed + 1 optioned) reserving the release of a second album.
But one of the peculiarities of the band was to convert the unexpected events in opportunities:
Marmo and BJ remembered that in a gig of some weeks before, at the opening of the concert, performed a band where the drummer was very impacting; his technique was still a little bit sour, but the touch was brutal powerful.
It just needed a couple of days to contact and convince that guy.
That day they were laying (unconsciously) another cornerstone in the history of the band: Dave became the Green Arrows’ drummer.
Dave was burning the stages learning the song of the gig track list in only two weeks, allowing the band to restart the activity practically instantly.
G.A. live: Marmo – BJ – Master One – Pav – Dave
With this good situation the guys decided to concentrate on the new album’s writing thickening their activities. They had a contract to respect, but they won’t slacken the gig appearance.
G.A. live: Master One – Marmo – BJ – Dave – Pav
As wrote in the opening, those were trouble times, and so, the quite couldn’t last too long.
BJ didn’t bear the rhythm of the very demanding activity required by the band and so he retired from the project.
So, in the first months of the 2004 the band lost their second founder and remained without the singer and a guitarist.
The first emergency solutions were to transfer to Marmo all the rhythm parts of the guitar, leaving on hold all the lead lines. The main voice lines were split for the major parts to Pav, and the rest to Master One.
The following weeks were engaged with the rework of the new songs with the adaptions to the Pav singing style.
G.A. live: Marmo – Pav
Luckily a part of the situation was solved in very quick time: Marmo and Dave convinced one friends of them to join the band as lead guitarist: Johnny Nazgul.
G.A. live: Master One – Marmo – Dave – Pav – Johnny Nazgul
It’s the end of the 2004, the album was half done and the band decided to fix these songs recording a demo called “The Earth” (easter egg: 3 songs of that demo can be heard as bonus track of the 2018 reprint of “Rising from a Burning Desease”).
Marmo – Pav – Johnny Nazgul – Master One – Dave
In the following month the album was completed and ready for the studio recording, but, as wrote, in those years we couldn’t make one step forward, without finding two behind.
The spring of 2005 was a real test of strength:
for different reasons, in a couple of months, Master One and Johnny Nazgul left the band.
There was an agreement to respect (The Earth recording and release) and gig’s scheduled to honour, all the songs had to be modified.
From a five man’s band, Green Arrows became a power trio, so, all the lead lines and second voices had to be deleted.
No more turntable tricks, only one guitar, only one voice with at most small choirs.
In the following period occurred a complete rewriting of the songs, the old ones and the new ones.
Live @ Bar8 – Marmo – Dave – Pav
In canned be normal if a state of despair and anger reigned between the survivors, but the three guys didn’t throw the sponge: that wasn’t the spirit of the band, Green Arrows means perseverance.
So, they held the recording of the album concentrating on the live activity: the most important thing was to restore sap and enthusiasm in the band, enjoying the concerts and spend a period without chaining the mind with studio terms.
Live @ Bar8 – Marmo – Pav
The recording of “The Earth” restarted only in 2008, the release happened in beginning 2009.
It sounded like a liberation for Pav, Marmo and Dave.
A new dawn will be happened in a shorter time.
Their perseverance will be rewarded in a closer future.
GREEN ARROWS 