New Jersey Stage Issue 44 | Page 18

and I fight and I’m determined as hell to hopefully have an al- bum available by the end of 2018 for release or download… God, I would love to have it on vinyl if I could.” Richards is currently writing and recording demo versions of the songs. He has a small home studio in his new home where he records his songs and ideas onto a 16-track Zoom digital record- er. If they start morphing into more of a song, he drops them onto his Apple Logic Studio and starts adding instruments that he doesn’t play to the mix. One of the benefits of where he lives is being 48 minutes from Muscle Shoals and one hour from Nashville. Most people know Nashville and its history, but Muscle Shoals has tremen- dous history of its own. Artists like The Rolling Stones, Lynryd NJ STAGE - ISSUE 44 Skynrd, The Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, and Rod Stewart recorded clas- sic songs there. “There’s a feel and a vibe in that room that’s just incomparable,” said Richards. Between the costs of hiring top-notch performers and find- ing the time to record while hav- ing good days and a lot of bad days, creating this album is quite a challenge. But it’s something INDEX NEXT ARTICLE 18