The song is about his own personal experience of what happened when he was living in Patong when the Tsunami hit in 2004.

Mark tried to record the song in 2011 but due to numerous reasons and circumstances it’s taken a few years for him to get around to recording the ‘Tsunami Day’ song but finally, with the help of his friends and sponsors, Mark to return to Phuket to organize the studio recording, the charity, design the websites and also set up all the newspaper and radio station promotion.

On the 15th of November the ‘Tsunami Day’ song was ready for downloads from this website and also hopefully the song will receive radio play and newspaper advertising in many outlets over the coming weeks before the 26th of December 2013, which is “Tsunami Day”.

Mark says “It’s been a long and hard road over the past few years, probably a lot longer, but even though my circumstances are still far from rosy right now, this is simply something that I feel I must do – no matter what. It’s basically the reason I am here right now.

Q&As

1. What inspired you to write the song?

Unfortunately the inspiration came from my own personal experiences while I was living in Patong back in 2004 when the Tsunami hit Patong. I realize that I did not write the song for 6 or 7 years after the Asian Tsunami, but this is not something that you can simply wipe from your memory. It’s always there and probably always will be.

One of the lyrics in the song mentions my landlady knocking on my door. Due to it was boxing day, and on Christmas night I did not get back to my bed until around 5pm boxing day morning, I could not really write in the song what she really said to me or what I replied back. Plus the lyrics would not have fitted. What she did really say as she was crazily knocking on my door was ” Mark – You Die – Big Wave”. Her English was not to good but along with the fact that I had absolutely no clue what was going on, my head was really hurting, her bellowing out and the banging on my door etc I pulled the pillow over my head and shouted back a few pleasantries. It took a few minutes to all sink in.

As far as song it’s self. I was sat in my bedroom, I picked up the guitar, a tune swirled around my mind and the lyrics blossomed with ease from there. It simply all clicked into place. I had a small Tascam 4 track recording studio back then so after around 20 tries to record the song on my guitar, and a very sore finger tips, I finally managed to lay the tracks and a vocal down. Some songs are just like this and some take weeks, months or sometimes even years to write. Any songwriter will understand this. Not saying that I am a songwriter. I just try.

2. What has happened in the interim – why are you now releasing it?

As I mentioned. I have been trying to record the ‘Tsunami Day’ song for a few years now. When I left the UK in late 2011 I carried this demo recording on my memory stick for two or more years around Thailand, China and Malaysia in the hope that some day I will be able to record it. Last year was on Phuket twice but each time I had to leave Phuket to work in China. It was just a. time and a money situation which prevented me from doing this in 2012. In 2013 I returned to Phuket from China just because I could not get the song out of my mind and I wanted to record the song no matter what. It was one of those situations where if I did not record it, then I would have regretted it. It’s just something I had to do. No other reason.

3. I believe the production of the song was rather unique – how did it all come together?

In truth I returned to Phuket to work months back and as soon as I arrived this job fell through. So I was basically stuck with absolutely no money and no job at the time, so in reality and normal situations I had no way to achieving my goal. Saying this I am not one who believes in normal situations and always believe there’s a way, so what I did was I simply came up with the idea to attract sponsors in return for hopefully good marketing and advertising. This would not cost me anything due to one of my many jobs is email marketing. So I then set up the email, sent it out the email request to a few hundred companies on Phuket and crossed my fingers, toes and what ever else I could find. I also asked a few close friends such as ‘Mick Bates’,’Luc Montens’ at ‘Tropical Properties’ and ‘Michael Dietvorst’ at ‘Oriental Living’, plus a few other people.

At that point I still did not have any contact with any charities or musicians, the recording studio etc. I just knew that without sponsors this simply would not happen. I tested the water so to speak. I also knew it was a long shot but worth a try. Obviously the recipients of the mail out did not know me, and the email could have basically been from anyone, so I was not expecting many replies or offers, if any.

Luckily for me my 3 close friends all agreed to sponsor and also ‘Phuket Hash House Harriers’ and ‘Golden Wave / Phuket Wake Park’ also replied to the email mail out pledging sponsorship. It ending up being just enough sponsors to finally pay and just cover the 4 session musicians, the practice studio, the recording studio, the set up the ‘Tsunami Day’ website and a few taxi’s and odds and ends.

From there it started on a rocky note due to a few people let me down but then it snowballed after I finally contacted some session musicians, met them a few times, had one practice session with them and then just booked the studio. In-between the recording I also contacted the ‘British International School’ and ‘Neill Thacker’ asking if the school’s choir would be interested in doing the backing vocals on the song, and Neill kindly agreed. I also contacted the ‘Phuket Has Been Good To Us’ charity and with the help of ‘Tina Hall’ we worked out that all donations, be it from the ‘Tsunami Day’ song download or from cash donations, would go directly towards introducing music and the arts to the orphans at the ‘Coconut Club’ in Kamala and I also set up and designed the website ( www.tsunamiday.com ). Obviously there’s a lot more to it such as a lot of bouncing emails back and forth and waiting for replies but it got there in the end. After 6 weeks or so, and five visits to the studio, the song was completed and ready on the 15th of November 2013.

4. What’s the next step. Why are you doing this?

Beyond what I have explained I suppose it’s simple really. I wrote a song and I knew years back that I wanted to try and help a charity with the song. In 2010 I also recorded one of my song for charity in the UK so I also knew that with a charity song I can nag, push and get away with many marketing and advertising angles and then from there all this exposure of the song would mean more exposure for the charity. It’s basically as simple as that. Marketing.

It’s really just something in life I had to do. If I can bring just 10$ to the charity by means of recording the song and the marketing and advertising that comes from this then I am a happy chap. Obviously I am hoping for a lot more donations but this is all out of my hands now and up to the people to either download the song or make a cash donation directly to ‘Phuket Has Been Good To Us’. It sounds really easy to get people to go to the website and donate just 1$, or what they can, but in fact it’s not easy. I just hope that visitors to the ‘Tsunami Day’ website will take just 5 minutes of their time to download or donate. Also,

As far as where my next step. Well. I have done what I came here to do. I did have one more song that I want to record for personal and licensing reasons but once again it’s come down to funds. No work equals no funds so now I have recorded and the marketing is almost finished I might have to leave Phuket again to find work. That’s life. Sava!

Also, from January 2014 the ‘Tsunami Day’ song will be available for licensing. Companies can contact me directly using this email: mr.m.hopkins@gmail.com

For full details and to listen to the song please follow the below links:

http://www.hotelsdealsphuket.com

http://www..tsunamiday.com