How do you tell the story of the final battle at the end of time… the end of our world as we know it? 200 million soldiers marching on Israel… devastation no war has ever seen…?
First, you stay grounded and accurate to the Word. Donʼt get the facts wrong… ok, but how about laying down the music in our studio…
My collaborator, Bob Huff, and I took a new and risky approach to this song. Realizing that it could be one of the main climaxes of this rock opera it needed to sound epic, with guitars and orchestra blending together, and tell the accurate story in end-time prophecy.
We actually constructed this song in short sections then “glued” our creative germs together into an elaborate sounding musical storyboard. Once we established a click track for the military march feel, Huff recorded hundreds of musical ideas until we seized on certain melodic sequences that fit the texture and musical story we were after.
Creativity was never the problem with Bob, it was a matter of capturing and seizing the greatest sounds he laid down and then start editing the story together until we built a basic track and feel. Once that was established everything else began to flow and evolved into the story that it is.
A couple days after the basic track was created, I started experimenting and singing different melody ideas over the track until it settled simply enough to tell the entire story of the end of the world, in just about six minutes. Crafting the lyrical story was the toughest challenge for me. I enjoyed writing each line, but so much had to be covered in order to paint an accurate and meaningful feeling so it took me many rewrites to find all the picture words I needed to tell the story… but definitely one of my favorites to write.
