So this month’s blog is all about recording my album, starting with recording my first single ‘EVERMORE’ from the live action move of Disneys Beauty and the Beast.

Collabro fans and especially my cherry blossoms on Patreon have been asking me to release solo music for a very long time and as I do so many solo shows I also thought it would be nice to have solo music that people could enjoy on streaming platforms alongside the live shows. I started by writing out all the songs I’ve sung at solo gigs and ones that I’ve always loved to try but I ended up with SO many songs it almost felt like an impossible task to get them down to just 10 (the average amount for a standard album).

So I reached out to my Patreons and they all suggested some amazing songs and it became quite clear that the theme of musical theatre could work really well but I wanted to make sure all the songs meant something to me or even made sense in an album setting! Then everything kind of changed when I signed my contract to play Gaston in Beauty & the Beast pantomime in Vietnam for Christmas 2024! Their team heard I was looking to create an album and they asked if I would tailor the album towards the Vietnamese/Asian audience, which has much more of a pop sound, so they could hear some of my solo music before they saw me in pantomime. This kind of changed everything as I was then looking at releasing singles rather than a full album in one go and the Vietnamese team seemed very keen for me to release some pop covers as well as musical theatre. The first single then seemed obvious as ‘EVERMORE’ as this was a song I’d covered before, it was asked for by the fans AND I am going to be in Beauty & the Beast this Christmas! It also crosses the border nicely of pop and musical theatre so win win win!

I hired producers Auburn Jam who work closely with musical theatre and pop artists. They are known for creating new sounds with artists so it seemed like the perfect fit. Plus they had been recommended by my good friend Kerry Ellis so I was really looking forward to working with them. When I went into the studio, I worked closely with the team to create a sound that was current and had a pop edge to it so that it would be a unique version of the song for me and also appeal to a mass audience. I started by singing the song with the pianist before we built up the instruments for the backing track and then I actually sang the song again over the new backing as I felt the feel of the song had slightly changed. Plus we’d even changed the melody in some places which made it more unique.

You can normally record 2 or even 3 songs in one day but because this was my first single and the feel of the song changed quite a few times it actually took 2 full days to get this one right.

My second single (out on 13th November) will be ‘TEENAGE DREAM’ (originally by Katy Perry). This is a pop cover that I have really enjoyed performing at my solo shows and allows me to show my fun uptempo music that you can almost dance along to! I cannot wait for you all to hear it.

There are so many more songs to come and so much more I could say on this topic so if you have any questions, please email manager@michaelaugerofficial.com and maybe I can do another blog in the future on my other singles / the full album which I hope will be out March / April 2025

You can listen to my first solo single NOW from this link: https://slinky.to/EvermoreMA :)

Hope you enjoyed this blog - don’t forget to come back on December 1st for my next blog :)