New App Allows Fans to Record With Taylor Hawkins, Phil Manzanera
Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and jam band Umphrey’s McGee have all contributed music to an app called WholeWorldBand, which allows users to create their own music by building around song stems uploaded by the artists. In Hawkins’ case, the drummer provided a video session that enables fans to write their own songs with the Foo Fighter on drums. “I was kinda imagining some sort of song in there, but I want you guys to be creative and think of your own thing,” Hawkins tells WholeWorldBand users.
Manzanera, who previously contributed a session to WholeWorldBand, is back for his second foray on the app. This time, the guitarist brings his cover of Kanye West and Jay Z’s Watch the Throne single “No Church in the Wild,” a song that featured a sample of Manzanera’s “K Scope.” “The whole process is about musical recycling,” Manzanera said of the app. “And I really hope that you join in that recycling process.”
Umphrey’s McGee have offered up the multi-track stems for their new single “Bad Friday,” plus a version of the song where 16 bars are left open for guitar-playing fans to fill in with their own solo. The Police’s Stewart Copeland, the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart and many more have similarly dropped sessions onto WholeWorldBand, with the resulting fan-made tracks being posted on social media.
WholeWorldBand is available on iPhone, iPad, and Windows and MacOS computers. In December 2014, the app allowed users to sing Bono’s Band Aid 30 lyrics in an effort to raise money to fight Ebola in West Africa.