Tone Is Everything

A studio can have the nicest console, a great isolation room and a slick, bowl-cut salesman to tell you how great his studio is. It means fuck all in the grand scheme of things because it comes down to that magic word, Tone.

I wrapped up most of the guitars over a 48 hour period, which meant sleeping at the studio. The collaborative effort and chemistry between Matt and I has been exceptional to say the least. We seem to click on every level and almost read each others thoughts when it comes to the melodic landscape of these songs.

Some moments that really stuck out for me were The Lost Art Of Breathing and Promise (which I'm especially excited about). I haven't really gotten to the clean guitars yet, but Promise is a song I'm particulary proud of and I will be doing other parts, including acoustic guitars, after we re-amp and change the set up. We got 5 different amps with a few different cabs and about a million mics to cover all the dynamics (TONE!..)

and so it continues.....

Happy Accidents to You All!

Often it’s the happy accidents that make a song really interesting and last night we were treated to a few of those accidents. Reggie (aka Shawn) has been tracking guitars for the past few days and things are sounding amazing!! I get so inspired when I hear him lay down his guitar tracks. The thing is with Reg, he has it all locked up inside his head and we don’t ever get to hear his sound-scape until he gets into the studio. It’s the same sort of thing when hearing the songs fully produced when several months earlier they were born from the humble strings of an acoustic guitar. It’s overwhelming sometimes because they are bigger and better than I had ever envisioned. The great thing is is that we all get so motivated by each other’s ability and creativity.

For example, when Reggie changed his approach for The Lost of Breathing it gave the song the spark it had been missing; causing Matt to play a wicked groove on the kit, which in turn, caused Georgie (Jay) to tap out a sick bass line. Breathing has truly been the problem child of the bunch over the past several months, but with each passing session it’s becoming the most interesting track on the album.

and so it continues………….

So finally I got in to the studio to start tracking. We've been in purgatory waiting for the drums to be tracked and edited but let me tell you it was well worth the wait. I did however show up late like usual but at least I didn't get lost! First song we did was Does Change Mean I'm Changing and God spoke to my fingers and created a groove that will get ya moving! To my amazement, it only took 3 takes (pretty sure i'm awesome now). It sounds incredible and somehow this once show opener has transformed into a great album track.

After a shit load of talking, which had nothing to do with the album and more to do with how amazing Matt and I are (haha) we eventually worked on My First Robot (f.k.a. Idiot's Guide To Genuis f.k.a. 4th Floor Pull-out), followed by Matt and I mutually stroking each others egos and talking about how shitty the music industry is. This song has come such a long way from its origins, I'm pretty sure we almost dumped it but now its a HIT! After completely forgetting the bridge we got on track and nailed this one in only a few takes as well and even came up with a couple extra bass lines to really help complement the drums. Unfortunately we had to stop there as it was getting late and we ran out of cocoa butter so we decided to call it a night.

Jay