So the fateful day has finally come when we are able to release our new album into the wild. I am honestly really excited for my friends to hear it, and I am really proud of how it turned out. I feel that this is by far the best thing that our band has ever recorded, and that is not necessarily something I think every time we put out a new record… There is definitely something different about this time around, and I hope that our current fans will enjoy it, but also maybe people that have written us off will give this record a shot.

Amazon MP3 for $3.99!

Well, down to business first. If you are considering purchasing a digital copy, then I’d your best bet is to head over to amazon.com, where you can buy the entire album right now for only $3.99! This is for one day only – Monday, October 5th, which is also one day earlier than it will be available in stores. It will include a bonus track called “Terminals”, which is a fairly catchy little number, but just didn’t quite fit as far as becoming an official piece of the album. In addition to being sold at the usual places you can still find compact disc, we also plan to release an LP (vinyl) version, and I am personally really excited to see and listen to this album on vinyl because it just makes sense, with the packaging, as well as the recording. I am also so excited about the album cover. Matt’s uncle is an amazing painter and I am honored to use his work as the cover. I am really glad that once you open the packaging, that it doesn’t even say our band name on it, because it is an amazing piece of art.

There are so many things I could talk about the recording process, I will probably add some more information in later posts as I think of it. The first thing I always tell people when I talk about recording is that it was the most relaxed time that any of us have ever had in the studio. There were many late morning starts and early evening endings, which I think helped keep us from getting burned out. It was also great to work with Mark Townsend again (my father-in-law), who encouraged us to take breaks to play basketball, baseball, frisbee, and whatever other else we could do to get outside. But besides the easy schedule, there was just more of a laid-back attitude while we were recording, and I think it really helped that there was no pressure to impress anyone, or to stick to hard deadlines. We originally recorded the album to be released on Mono Vs Stereo, and RCA/Jive came on board just weeks before the release date. We are looking forward to working with them, but in a way it just made things easier to be on our own for the recording process.

One of the things I am most proud about is that we were somehow able to get the record mixed by Andy Wallace. He has done some severely incredible albums such Nirvana “Nevermind”, Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”, Thrice “The Artist In The Ambulance”, and Coldplay “Viva la Vida”. I really like his mixing style in that he doesn’t use a lot of modern day tricks, and tends to not over-compress, or add too many effects, rather just create a great balance of what was actually recorded. I am huge fan of this style, as I am sick of so many bands using over-produced slick records that are just all harsh and too loud and compressed.

On recording guitars, we took a little bit of a different approach. We really tried to not record too many guitar tracks, which is something that sometimes comes a little too easy for our band. But we didn’t go overboard on recording too many rhythm guitar tracks or using too many different multiple amps for each pass. I also made it a point to try to not use too many overdrive pedals, but to try to just use the amp’s natural gain structure as much as possible. I did end up use a variety of overdrives (mostly for overdubs), as well as boost pedals, which work well for driving low-wattage amps. It seemed like somewhere along the line, Mark noticed that it was becoming a very Fender guitar heavy record. I have used Les Pauls mainly on all of our previous records, but I really liked the attack and clarity from the singly coil Fender guitars. I have been really into the Jazzmaster and Telecaster (and Tele-Deluxe) lately. We used a lot of amps, but mainly a few old 50 watt Marshall heads and small class-A amps. My TopHat Vanderbilt, a Vox AC-15, and a Fender Deluxe Reverb seemed to be the favorites go-to amps. I am so excited about how the guitars sound on the recording, I feel like this is the most thought out that the sounds have ever been, because I really thought about each section and had an idea for what I wanted the guitars to sound like in each section, and many times we used what I thought would be best in my head.

Overall, we had such a fun time doing this record, and I will continue to update more dorky stuff like talking about my pedalboard setup and what kind of tubes I like to use what not… photos taken by our bud Cale.