TIC Diary Part II – GETTING STARTED
In my case just sitting down and recording was not an option. We needed to have a road map for where we were going. Ground zero was the songs. We needed to go over some songs, have some long talks about what sound I was looking for, and finally start getting our fingers dirty by actually recording.
To prepare I grabbed an acoustic guitar and sang him some tunes. We picked the ones that we liked, ones we thought he could really have influence over, and put a few on the back burner that just weren’t there yet. My songs used to not be totally 100% complete, meaning the lyrics, the melodies, the chords were all there but missing were some intros, bridges, solos and structural changes that should be there. Each song has Mike’s hands in there somewhere, whether it was like – put a bridge here, let’s leave this for an 8 bar solo,, or cut this part out here. That is what a producer does in a lot of ways. They maintain the general vision of the CD and contribute to all areas of sound and structure.
We decided to start with “If She Can” as it was my wife’s favorite. My wife is a very big country fan so it was determined early on it would have the most country influenced sound of all the songs but it wouldn’t be country. I can hear it plain as day now that “If She Can” could be a big country song. It just has that feel to it. This song was written when I was eighteen and the first comment Mike had was “I think we should change the first line”. There are some not so obvious possibilities of the meaning “Your finding yourself a man” but I told Mike “it’s a song about a kid realizing he has to be a man to endure adult emotions.” As you hear – the words stuck.
In the old days bands would come in and record a song together and be done with it. Modern recording has many individual parts recorded at separate times and places combined to make the final sound you here. Each guitar, drums, bass, vocals are all done separated and added together as you go. But where do you start?
You usually start by doing the rhythm section: Drums then bass. But you do those one at a time. So how do you get a drummer in here to play drums without any music? After the songs were worked out with just Mike and I on acoustics, we “demo’d” the songs to a basic recording. With a click track or a metronome we recorded just an acoustic guitar and a singer. This was played and then recorded over one instrument at a time. These rough demos were VERY rough and Mike did them with me recording. I listened to those for a long time to memorize structure and melody so when it came time to record my part – I knew it well. The demos are funny because Mike is laughing a few times or being silly. My kids would make me rewind spots over and over again and just laugh until they had tears in their eyes. But that was our baseline. Each chord and melody was there where it should be.
“If She Can” we did in two weeks: Demo, drums, bass, guitars, back up vocals, lead vocals, finishing touches. That process was different for the rest of the CD. The rest of the CD we demo’d the songs, had a drummer come in and do the drums for all the songs, and so forth. So those other songs were grouped together as the same process. This was easier for scheduling because I had a friend of mine Jimy do drums and then I had two other friends do bass (not including Mike) and so forth. This batch mentality of work allowed us to schedule guys easier and always have things to work on, without putting things out of whack. You wouldn’t do lead vocals anything but last because they are the most important part of the song. And you need to know where it is going to sit with everything else.
Jimy Soprano graduated from the University of Hartford with a degree in Jazz drumming. I met him while taking my Protools class at a local studio and befriended him early on. Honestly it was an honor to have a guy that skilled do drums on my CD. He is far better a drummer than I am a guitar player or singer so I liked the idea of bringing in people better than me to make myself try harder. Jimy did the drums in probably 2 weeks. He had to spend time at home with our demos to get used to song structure and so forth, but when he was here he was ready.
Bass guitar was split three ways. Mike MacDonald played in a 1980s band Rythym Syndicate who did the song “P.A.S.S.I.O.N.” He is a friend of mine so I wanted him on two tracks, and Scott Cole is someone I worked with over the years and I wanted him to do two tracks, and I left the others for Mike Woods to do. Most don’t know it but Woods is a fantastic bass player – one of the best I have seen. As it ended up Woods did 4 tracks, Scott did 2 and Mike MacDonald did 1. We needed to get another feel for one of the songs Mike MacDonald was doing so Woods had to re-do that one. Scott Cole also spent a few days at the end of the project really hammering out lots of good ideas for background vocals. Other background vocals were done by my friend and Damone member, Mike Vazquez. Also my pastor and friend Chuck Ericson did some background vocals.