I’ve been working with my band The Sheila Divine on a new record. The first one since our demise in 2002. I’ve written about all those details before which you can read here.

I wanted to share my experience so far in regards to using Kickstarter, writing songs in public on UStream, and getting instant feedback through social channels as we continue the recording process.

So far we’ve recorded eight songs. The goal is to end up with around 13 so we can choose the best 10 for an album.

I think It took us a while to get back into the swing of being a band again. It had been many years since we wrote together and my level of songwriting and the way I write have changed. I think it took some adjusting to get on the same page and feel like we all had a stake in the song writing, and also writing the types of songs that work best for The Sheila Divine.

We have experimented along the way, by inviting friends and guests to join us for a night.
We had grand visions of collaborating with a bunch of people, but lately the songs have been flowing for us and we’re trying to just ride this creative wave.

So we raised around $13,000 to record a record and I have been very conservative with the finances so far because I want to make sure we can fulfill all of the promises we have made to backers.

Logistically planning for the costs of T-Shirts, Vinyl, Photos, and then shipping out to our fanbase many of which live in Belgium does that.

Overall I have to say that Kickstarter as a site is pretty amazing. The backend tools have been useful and being able to contact groups based on the level of their donation has been handy.

Writing songs live in front of an audience has been an interesting experiment. It’s been really fun to hear people’s feedback as we are tracking. Most has been positive and even when it isn’t I think its mostly people just trying to take the piss.

Here’s what that process looks like.

The coolest part of the experience so far has been posting the songs as soon as they’re mixed. We’ve been using a site called Bandcamp that creates sharable widgets for all the social sites. It’s really nice to hear people’s enthusiasm and sometimes painful to hear their criticism.

Overall though I think the positives outweigh the negatives and if anything they help to push us into doing better with each song.

Here’s the latest song called Fragile Thing Called Man

That’s where we are currently. You can follow the making of the album by friending us on Facebook or watching our UStream channel every Thursday night.