John Metcalfe on ‘Scratch My Back’

“I have been busy working closely with Peter Gabriel on his ‘Scratch My Back’ project. This is a song swap with some of the world’s most legendary artists and is due for release in the Spring. My role has been to re-interpret the music of the song’s he has chosen to cover – quite honerous as some of the songs are among the best known in the last 40 years. The album will be acoustic, using only orchestral instruments (no guitars, drums or world instruments) and range in size from sparse chamber music to a much fuller orchestral sounds. We recently recorded the orchestra at Air Lyndhurst studios (George Martin’s studio) in London which was an enormous thrill hearing my arrangements performed by some of the best performers in the UK. The producer of the album is Canadian legend Bob Ezrin who has recorded dozens of classic albums including Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ We performed one of the songs, Paul Simon’s ‘Boy In The Bubble’ at Womad back in July. I have been working a lot down at Real World studios editing and mixing and will be continuing with that in the Autumn and it’s been a huge privilege to work with the great man.”

You can see John Metcalf at WOMAD at the Tower Festival in London this weekend performing with The Bays, The Heritage Orchestra and Simon Hale.

Images from the recording session at Air and John Metcalfe with Richard Chappell back at the Sony Oxford in the Writing Room at Real World.