Rich Wyman and Lisa Needham’s new song “Forgiveness” stems from an argument.
“It was a big fight, and I had to leave and go out for a walk,” Needham said. “I came back, and Richard said he wrote this song. And my thought was, ‘You think this is going to make everything OK?’ But it was great, because it was nice to hear him take some responsibility for what happened.”
The song, which is now streaming on all services, including the video on YouTube, is about the effort it takes to make relationships successful, Wyman said.
“It’s about the roller-coaster ride, and this is a song to encourage people to work through the (stuff),” he said.
“Forgiveness,” at its root, is about the communication between partners, and in Wyman’s and Needham’s case, between a husband and wife.
“At first, I think a lot of guys ask, ‘I said I was sorry, so what’s the problem?’ and their wives come back with, ‘We’ve got to talk about what happened,’ and that throws the guys off,” Wyman said. “So, this song is written from the male perspective, and it’s about being educated by my wife.”
Writing the song helped Wyman get in touch with Needham’s point of view.
“I came from a divorced family, and I grew up with this mentality that if you fight, you break up,” he said. “But Lisa, over the past 30 years, has taught me that you fight, you can still work through it and come back together. When you do, you move the relationship up to a higher level.”
Needham, who comes from a big family of women, said the first argument she had with Wyman took her aback.
“He would turn around and walk out, and I would go, ‘Wait, wait, wait. What are you doing?'” she said with a laugh. “I mean, with my family, we would get all of our crap out, and figure things out.”
“Forgiveness” was recorded in Rigby Road Studios and engineered by Jordan Clark in Salt Lake City.
“Each verse of the song builds up to the chorus,” Wyman said. “And it was fun to record this song and work with Jordan, because he became so much a part of the project.”
Needham calls Jordan an “engineering elf.”
“Even after you leave the studio, he’ll work on the songs and put in things we never even thought about,” she said.
The recording started with the drum track, laid down by Eric Munoz, Wyman said.
“The drum set was already there, tuned and mic’d up,” he said.
The bass tracks by Rehan Jacob came next, according to Wyman.
“Rehan is a groove machine, and he’s so good on the song,” he said.
Wyman added the keyboard track once the other laid down the rhythm foundation, and called in his friend Eric Sopanen to record the guitars.
“Eric does this ripping guitar solo,” Wyman said. “In the studio it looked like he was just standing there, but his fingers were doing amazing things.”
The horns were recorded remotely in New Hampshire, by Grammy Award-nominated musician Matt Appleton, known for his work in Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger.
We sent him the tracks, and I sent him a demo that I made with a horn-line guide,” Wyman said. “He not only came up with the final arrangement, but he played all the horns himself. He played the saxophone, trumpet, trombone and all the woodwinds.”
Once the horns were in place, Needham and Wyman recorded their vocals and sent the song to Los Angeles for mastering.
“Stephan Hawkes does our masters, and he has done our previous songs, ‘Memories of You’ and ‘Fugitive Dust,'” Wyman said.
When it came time to think about the video, Needham and Wyman reached out to their friend Bryce Johnson of GoBig Creative, who has worked with the musical couple on their videos, Wyman said.
“Bryce is incredible in what he does,” he said. “He came over for coffee and talked about whatever images that come to our brains.”
While “Forgiveness” starts off with the sound of a stylus on a vinyl record, Needham thought it would be fun to start the video with her and Wyman on a turntable.
“Bryce loved the idea, but said it would take a few months to do that,” she said. “So we thought about doing a band video.”
Wyman and Needham suggested the now-defunct L.A. East Studios in Salt Lake City.
“It was an old church ward house and there were a bunch of rooms that had been added on,” Needham said. “I mean, it’s no fun walking eight minutes to get to the bathroom.”
Wyman was familiar with the studio because he had performed there a few weeks ago when Rocky Anderson announced he was rerunning for Salt Lake City mayor after 15 years.
“I wrote a song for his campaign announcement and performed it for him at L.A. East,” Wyman said. “So I knew you could rent it out.”
After Wyman, Needham and Johnson took a tour of the studios, they set up a shoot date.
“We got all the musicians lined up and shot the video in one day,” Wyman said.
Adding dynamics to the video, Johnson filmed the verses in black and white and added color to the chorus.
“Bryce and Lisa spent a lot of time dialing the colors and shades in, because I’m not very good at colors,” he said.
Once Johnson finished the video, Wyman and Needham sent it off to HIP Video Promo, their promotional company in New Jersey.
“Andy Gesner is the head of the company, and they took the load off of our shoulders,” Wyman said. “It’s great to have a team behind us.”
While Wyman and Needham will take the next few weeks promoting “Forgiveness,” they are working on their own projects.
Wyman is in charge of Killer Keyz, the touring dueling pianos show.
“I do all the booking,” he said. “I do all the bookkeeping and all the accounting. I play all the shows. I drive the truck with all the equipment to all the shows.”
Needham, who recently premiered her one-woman stage show, “My Beautiful Midlife Crisis,” in Los Angeles, is recovering from knee surgery.
“I was walking the dog and coming down a 15-inch step, where there was a sheet of ice,” she said. “I fell and shattered the kneecap.”
But the two are not ones to sit back on their laurels after releasing “Forgiveness.” They already have plans for an album, which will include the new song, and the other three — “No Justice No Peace,” “Fugitive Dust” and “Memories of You” — which were released over the past few months.
“We have also written some more songs, and I’m excited to get back into the studio to record them,” Wyman said.