Where We Land is the first studio album by Australian Idol 2006 winner Damien Leith. It was released by Sony BMG in Australia on 18 August 2007, and in Ireland on 28 September 2007. Leith produced the album for seven months and created the album entirely with acoustic songs. He wrote or co-wrote nine of the twelve songs, collaborating with Alex Lloyd and his music director Paul Gray (Wa Wa Nee) in a few songs. All of his original songs were inspired by his friends and family. Leith included two cover songs in the album, Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" from the album Rumours and the traditional Irish song "Danny Boy". Where We Land received mostly average reviews from critics. It debuted in the Australian Albums Chart at number-one and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The album spawned the singles "22 Steps", "All I Want Is You" and "Not Just for the Weekend". Leith embarked on a national tour across Australia to promote the album in November 2007.
Background
Damien Leith stated how his debut studio album wanted to pan out: "I didn't really want to do anybody else's songs... I just wanted this album to be mine". Immediately after Australian Idol concluded, he convinced the producers of the show to break from protocol by giving him longer time to record the album. The protocol was that the Australian Idol winners had only one week after the competition ended to record their first album. He decided to work on his first studio album for the next few months. Leith was aware of the little success of the previous two Idol winners, Casey Donovan and Kate DeAraugo, so he decided to turn something more palpable than the previous winners by producing an album of original songs. He comments, "I suppose the main thing for me was trying to establish myself as a songwriter out of it because that's something that hasn't really been promoted in the past." He was determined to create as much original material as possible for the album, and create songs that truly represent who he was. He also wanted the themes in the lyrics to not only be personal, but broad enough so that listeners can relate to them.
Production and recording
Leith remarked that recording the album was an exciting but nerve-racking experience. He recorded his music at Sony BMG's recording studio in East Sydney. His producers already had in mind what kind of album they want to produce for Leith. He, however wanted his album to be totally acoustic. Knowing that he was well known by the Australian public as the new Australian Idol, he knew that it was risky to produce an acoustic based album because it was very different from the records produced by the previous Idol contestants, as many of their records predominantly featured up-beat pop songs. He noted that the music he was making could make the album harder to sell commercially.
As a result, he and his producers spent the time to work on the songs which would appeal to a broader audience. Leith did this by holding onto several elements in his music that people had enjoyed on Australian Idol. However, he still wanted to show new elements to the album, so he held on some elements of acoustic music. Leith comments,
"We didn't want to be too acoustic, or too rocky. I've been conscious of the people who bought The Winner's Journey, but also conscious about grabbing a new audience as well... I think this album's got all those kind of Winner's Journey elements – the falsetto and the emotional thing. But it's got a lot of me in it too."
Damien Leith was also conscious of the lyrics we wrote. He added a few emotional ballads which contained strong lyrics, but had left out the songs he thought were too depressing.
Leith spent seven months of recording and writing and worked with Bryon Jones, James Roche and Ross Fraser. Initially, he wanted the album to be released in March, but it was pushed back to August, partly due to the prolonged success of The Winner's Journey and partly because of the large number of songs they had to cull.
Writing and inspiration
The songs he wrote were inspired by his family and friends. A few of the songs explored the themes of love and fulfilment. "Not Just for the Weekend" was a song he wrote after the birth of his second son, Jagger. The song "Beautiful" is a love song written to his wife Eileen. Other songs in the album explored much darker themes. "Blew It All Away" is a heartfelt song about the suicide of a friend, which happened shortly after another friend died from cancer. Another song, "Alone" was inspired from a friend who was struggling after his father's death. "Shine Like the Sun" is about a friend in Ireland who was experiencing a rough relationship.