Mariah Carey’s former engineer has shared more details about the pop star’s secret ’90s alt-rock album.
Last month, Carey revealed that in 1995 she secretly recorded an alt-rock album called ‘Someone’s Ugly Daughter’, which she released under the moniker, Chick.
The singer broke the news on Twitter, in an extract shared from her memoir, The Meaning Of Mariah Carey.
“Fun fact: I did an alternative album while I was making [1995 album] ‘Daydream’. Just for laughs, but it got me through some dark days. Here’s a little of what I wrote about it in #TheMeaningOfMariahCarey,” she captioned the post.
Now, Carey’s former engineer, Dana Jon Chappelle, has shared more details about the album, revealing that it was “all very spontaneous” and that the ‘Fantasy’ singer channelled her inner L7, Sleater-Kinney and Green Day.
“It was all very spontaneous and impromptu,” Chappelle told Rolling Stone. “She didn’t want a lot of effort going into it… A lot of times, she’d write a song out and lyrically she’d be done in 10, 15 minutes. She’d sit there on a pad and knock out lyrics or ideas and then finish them another day.”
The record was an afterthought when recording the Grammy-nominated ‘Daydream’, explained Chappelle, who said that Carey’s band would jump into the ‘Someone’s Ugly Daughter’ sessions around midnight each night.
According to Chappelle, Carey layered her vocals with those of friend Clarissa Dane Davidson in order to keep her anonymity, and she was open to anyone joining the band.
Chappelle said that Carey would recruit management staff and studio staff for the project. “She would run down the hallway and go find people to bring them in the background. It didn’t matter if you sung in tune.”
“I did it for laughs. [Alternative rock] was such a popular genre at the time,” Carey told Colbert.
“I was like, ‘Well, I have a full band here. Let’s just do something, and I’ll just make up some nonsense and sing it’.”
Carey also revealed that she designed the album art for the record. She kept the record under wraps for years and apparently created quite a stir with her label at the time.
“I did a video, and I want it to be released so bad. My plan was I was going to dress up in a costume and make a video and be unrecognisable and just release it and see what happened,” she recalled.
“But that got stifled by certain people at the label so I kind of had to abandon the project, but I’m kind of happy that at this moment that the fans are actually hearing it.”
Mariah Carey’s autobiography hit shelves on September 29, just days before the release of her new album, ‘The Rarities’, which arrived on October 2.