Meet the Northampton taxi firm owner who has produced an album during the coronavirus pandemic

Managing taxis and producing music may not be the most obvious pair but the owner of a well-known Northampton firm has made an album during the coronavirus pandemic.

David Wright has spent his spare time over the past 11 months creating Life 2.0, nine tracks which sum up many of the emotions of the biggest public health crisis for 60 years.

The director of Bounds Taxis wrote the music before collaborating with different lyricists and singers to complete the songs, which he then tied together.

"I've never done anything like this in my life but if I do something, it's got to be done well and everything in that album is on there because it is good enough," he said.

"One thing I have learnt is how much work is needed to do vocal mixing - if played you what I started with, you wouldn't believe what it would end up like.

"I spent two days perfecting some of the songs but they had to be perfect as I didn't want any songs to be on there just to make up the numbers."

Having made electronic dance music as a hobby, the first coronavirus lockdown provided David the perfect chance to purse a dream of creating a whole album.

He wanted it to reflect the times as well as providing some creative release and positivity for people who may be struggling with the isolation.

David teamed up with a lyricist, Christian Lunn, for the initial tracks before reaching out to singer-songwriters across the globe to contribute.

"I wanted to call it Lockdown, I'd identify lyricists and they would write the lyrics and sing them and we would produce it and provice the backing tracks," he said.

"But the whole process took longer than expected, lots of people were having to work remotely and I couldn't find any decent vocalists.

"Christian Lunn wrote the first tracks so I went back to him in the end."

Songs range from an introduction with snippets from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to songs by Christian and a duet by an Italian and a Spanish singer who have never met.

David spent days working on the music and fine-tuning everyone's submissions, admitting that he did not realise how much time it took, especially for an amateur.

"It's a big job especially if it's your first time and working remotely trying to get people to finish the job so if I do an album ever again it will be with one person," he said, laughing.

The hardest part was getting contributors to finish what they started but eventually David had enough to complete the album, which is now called Life 2.0.

He has been releasing some songs on Soundcloud along the way but the whole album will be out on all streaming sites next month.

As time went on and the world went through different phases of the pandemic, such as the initial lockdown, the summer reprieve, and back into lockdown from November, the songs changed too.

David said: "In the beginning, everybody had this kind of delusion I suppose that it would be done by the summer or Christmas.

"So when this track came along, Christian was more downtrodden, he's a cruise singer by trade.

"So it's about how we've become disillusioned about what's going but we're not going to be beaten, that's where it came from.

"A lot of people wrote lyrics for the songs and you sometimes have to explain them but with this one, you don't need to explain anything."

With the album in the background, David was just as busy with Bounds, which like most businesses, has been severely affected by the pandemic.

The long-standing firm has gone from 54 members of staff to 12 to become more efficient, while David was close to selling two-thirds of his share on the eve of the crisis to pursue a music-making software business.

The deal has now been completed, coincidentally to the previous owner, Stuart Russell, who sold up to pursue his own music career in 2009.

One of the songs on the album reflects David's experience of the pandemic.

"Take Back Control depicts my story as it's about not believing what was about to unfold with your dreams and future on hold," he said.

"I was about to sell the business and that didn't happen so the song is all about how you can take control in the pandemic which isn't going to destroy your life.

"The bridge has a poignant line in it, 'a year from now you'll be hugging your friends, laughing about when you looked through a lens,' but that was written last year and we're still in this position."

While the album is complete, there are two tracks David is yet to include which do not have lyrics for them yet.

So he said any singer-songwriters interested in working on those songs should get in touch with him on [email protected].