Know My Name
Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 04:10 AM CDT

Hey guys! This is "Death Arrow"!

I hope some of you still know me pretty well and didn't forget about me after such a long time

My intention to stop by a few minutes was to send those who were questioning themselves about what I have been doing the entire time can get an answer now. Unfortunately, I couldn't participate at MacJams any longer because school (and some other stuff) was stressing me out already too much. But the most important thing I didn't give up after all - music - and worked on a new album for one and a half years. The album is called "I Am Nobody" and will be out June 2012, containing 12 tracks.

With this album, there came an important change, as well when I renamed "myself" from Death Arrow to Lucan Smiles, whereas Lucan is just an alteration of "Lukas", which is my real name, and Smiles is the English version of my mother's maiden name "Lach" which means smile in English. I did this change because I thought that Death Arrow was just a project that I could experiment with to kind of find my own style, and to explore the style that fitted me and my voice the most. With Lucan Smiles, this project has come to an end, and I know exactly how I want to sound like now.

A few days ago I released the official music video for my first single called "Know My Name" off my new album to YouTube, that I wanted to give you a chance listening to. I'm not really self-promoting myself here, I just want to give those who liked my music here on MacJams in the first place get to know and enjoy the new stuff.

As in the past, I want you to have free downloads of my music because I want to become a little "more" famous before demanding money for it. In the description in the YouTube-video is a free download link of the song to download for you all.

I'd appreciate some comments and likes on YouTube and some new subscribers too, as well as some new fans of my Facebook-page http://www.facebook.com/lucansmiles, as I'm just starting out with my new identity and am in need of some back up

I hope you enjoy!
Love, Lucan

Re:Know My Name
Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 04:37 PM CDT

Thanks for the update. Lot's of old MJ'ers on hiatus recently. Me included.
I have to say, you'll always be DeathArrow to me though.
Your song Not My Phone, has always been a top fav of mine.
Best of luck with your new album and your new name...
RR

Re:Know My Name
Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 06:32 PM CDT

Hi Lukas! Like the new video - very professional sound as ever - I can see how this has grown from the old sound. I will check out your other stuff too. Take care and good luck.

Re:Know My Name
Sunday, April 29 2012 @ 02:09 PM CDT

Thank you guys for checking the stuff out! Great I could still reach some jammers on here!
I appreciate the love

Lucan

Re:Know My Name
Monday, April 30 2012 @ 08:57 PM CDT

I came, I listened, I posted. All the best as you branch out into the new adventure.

Stephen

Re:Know My Name
Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 09:53 AM CDT

Hello again Lukas

Good to see you're still creating. Nice one!

Re:Know My Name
Wednesday, May 02 2012 @ 12:23 PM CDT

Hey there again!

First of all thank you so much for the positive response - I really never thought about getting that much favorable feedback! But this just shows me that the whole change turned out well

I had a request from Stephen on YouTube how I developed my "new" sound so I try to answer that question in the best way possible:
This whole change in my style of music started out with the writing and production sessions for a little 7-track ep called "Seven", that was more or less a concept ep where each song referred to one of the seven deadly sins. however, that didn't end well, because I had really some cool songs on there but they just did lack that little "extra", if you know what I mean (and I'm sure some of the perfectionists out there do!)...I was never really content with what I did back then, you can in fact listen to I think five of these songs on my old YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/deatharrowmusic The first of these songs, "Ghost", I presented to you earlier, but in the end I didn't complete the project.

The songs "Spaceship" and "Think You Should Know" ended up left over for later use in a probable album-project. I, however, dumped "Think You Should Know" because I didn't think it fitted on the album. By the way you can listen to a live performance of the song on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZt7MAzImTo.

So back to developing the sound: I realized on that long journey of perfecting my music and art that I had to try out something new, which I did with "Ghost" already, but I took it further on "Spaceship" and "Think You Should Know". I kind of combined my alternative side with mainstream pop elements like throbbing bass synths and so on.

Then, we're in the present right now! Well- kinda. Back in 2010 (wow :O, already aaages ago) I just had the idea to "steal" the chord progression from Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" and applied it to one of my productions (just for your information: I always start out with the production, then add melodies and vocals; I never write the melody first, I always have a finished production in front of me before I start to write the actual song)...
"Know My Name" actually started out with the bass synth you can hear in the verses and I then built up from that continuing into the chord progression of "Paparazzi". "Know My Name" was just sort of trying out a new style of music, and to my surprise, I liked it!

Then it took me about a year to produce and write all the other songs, approaching a more mainstream-feel than "Know My Name" had, but really just keeping an alternative twist to it, and developing my own "new" arranging, producing structure/scheme and sound.

The songs on my new album "I Am Nobody" mostly consist of pop drums and strings combined with fucking many backing vocals (for one song, it took me 5 hours in the recording booth!!!, and my voice was dead after that) and some nice synths, riffs, melodies and ... i can't really describe it, you just have to check it out yourself. For those interested: I will release an album preview in middle of May somewhere and I'll post it in this thread also, if you'd like, so you can get an impression on what the album will sound like.

To my new sound, it also is important to say that my lyrics now are very honest! The lyrical content on the album mostly deals with love and sexuality, because during the last year I realized that I'm bisexual and I just had to cope with that in my music to get rid of the bad feelings about it I had in the beginning.

By the way, I think comparing the "new" sound to other artists is pretty useless because I didn't really pay attention to what I did when I was producing the songs and I don't even KNOW what I did because I just do it without thinking about it! That's what, I think, was the most important factor contributing to the new sound because I didn't really think about that all. I just live art now and I think that is fantastic. Lucan Smiles and me are the same person, in fact, my whole life is art and that's why I'm so content right now with what I write and sing and do, which I wasn't at the beginning! This whole "realizing-who-I-am"-thing made me content with myself and now I can be content with my art as well!

Here is the tracklist for "I Am Nobody" so you can just get a little little glimpse of what the songs will really be about (of course, open for all of your personal interpretations):

01 Know My Name
02 Naked
03 Breathe For You
04 Breaking Free (Heaven on Earth)
05 Terrain
06 Never Let Go
07 You'll Never Get My Soul
08 Scars
09 Until We're Done
10 Why Don't You Love Me?
11 I Run Away
12 Spaceship

To conclude all I want to say is that all the above mentioned will definitely come out through listening to my album because "I Am Nobody" is just me, and I am my music, in the end! So if you want to get to know the new sound and how I REALLY developed it, you have to have a listen to the album (and again, I'm NOT saying this to promote myself - I'm just saying it because it is the truth!)

Stay tuned (and thanks for that wonderful request, Stephen!)

Let's make this a thread about how YOU developed a certain sound, just tell me! I'm curious

Love, Lucan

Re:Know My Name
Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 10:41 AM CDT

Hey there! Hope you're still enjoying your lives and your music out there

I just wanted to jam in to tell you that I have a new single out and that my album 'I Am Nobody' will be released on July 27, so really soon! It will be free by the way!

This is the music video for the new single 'Why Don't You Love Me?'. Free download is in the description



...and this is a 6:30min preview of all of the songs that will be released on my new album 'I Am Nobody' - Hope you like the new sound and I'd appreciate you downloading the record after its release



Hope you enjoy/ed! Tell me what you think!


Happy 4th of July by the way!

Love, Lucan