The last Dumbwaiters cassette tape has been wrung dry of content at the end of 2024. Having spent many weeks revitalising and adding material to the Dumbwaiters original sound. Jim and I had had so much pleasure from meeting up and working together on the new material we decided to continue (see “The final chapter in the DumbWaiters cassette archives”) .

In 2025 we set ourselves the goal of making an album of 12 songs. At the start we did not know what we were going to wanted create or what we capable of producing on our own although there were glimpses in the last Dumbwaiters Tape KTV3.

Since the very beginning we were the key motivators in the Dumbwaiters. Jim would have an ideas for a song that I would be able to utilise music and technical skills to develop the harmony, orchestration, and structure.

Decades have past and we have been honing our respective crafts; Jim has been studying creative writing university, where I have been using digital technology to compose and produce music. Despite time passing our approach to making music together has not changed, since advancement digital technology it has meane the possibility of producing professional sounding results within the confines of our own homes has become easy.

Living at opposite ends of the country no longer present a barrier working on productions together being able to meet up online to discuss and create together.

Jim had sown the seeds, creating a list of ideas that would inspire a song from which I would start to produce a lyric sometime this might only be one line other time he might have an idea for the whole thing. My job was working out the nuts and bolts of the music, whether that be a beat, meter, harmony, instrumentation, although we would be both involved in experimenting and deciding the final mix. Sometime there would be a lot of working and reworking going on before getting the right feel for the song, although some piece would come together in an explosive couple of days where I would be laying down a series instrument tracks. The instrumentation was often varied too we have both built up a collection of unusual instruments so it was possible to build up a large palette of colour for some tracks. We took full advantage of using digital recording adding additional guitar overdubs using effects like the horizontal glissando to add a punk edge, as well as adding a high bass guitar to provide a tenor counter melody were some of my favoured techniques.

In April, Jim and I learnt that our university friend Ron Rooney, bassist from the Dumbwaiters had died by a carefully planned suicide. It was devastating news. I knew that Ron had taken up the mandolin and had been interested in his musical Irish roots. I had thought I could persuading him to contribute to the StummWaiters only a few weeks before learning about his sudden demise (see “Dumbwaiters punk bassist, “Ron Rooney” uncompromising controversial free thinker” ).

Subsequent work on the album took a darker and more sombre feel as we both dealt with the grief of losing and influential comrade. Jim wrote several lyrics inspired memories of the happier times we had spent together with Ron. I managed to secure a few video fragments of his mandolin playing from his close friend Jo. I was able to extract some great mandolin licks of his playing which we have incorporated into a couple of songs in the music. It felt good to have music embedded into our sound once again.

The Savage God is a broadly speaking vintage rock album although not easily fit into one category as there are a mix of different styles used as heard in the Dumbwaiters music.