I got so involved
with telling how the song got written, I forgot to mention how it got
to be recorded.
The original plan
for our album was to record it ourselves. That would save a lot of
money. Then, Rocco gave me a copy of Stovepipe Mountain's CD. One
listen was all it took to convince me that you get what you pay for.
I made arrangements
to visit the place where it was recorded, and meet the man
responsible. Wes Chapmon owns and operates Studio Bohemo in Bath,
NH. I hope I'm getting this story right; he used to co-own a
commercial studio in Texas and wanted to open a little one of his
own. His wife happens to be from New Hampshire, so they found a
place and set up shop.
We hit it off
immediately, and I was very impressed with the facility. He even
offered to cut us a break on the price, and we set a date for the
first session. Jonathan, Rocco and I got there about 9 am on a
Saturday, set up, and started. The plan was to do basic tracks for
as many songs as we had time for, and build the finished product from
there.
By the middle of the
afternoon, we were pulling out songs that the three of us had never
even played together. Every song on the CD was begun that day, and
most of the bass and drum parts are from that first session. A lot
of the rhythm guitar, and even some of the leads and lead vocals all
happened in that one day. I don't think we needed more than 3 takes
of anything, and some we nailed in 1. It was quite exciting.
This song in
particular is an example of the magic that Wes worked from that point
on. The rhythm guitar parts were done with a Fender Strat, through
my Deluxe Reverb. I went back in to add leads with a Les Paul and
one of his Fender Princetons. I also re-did the vocals.
At that point, Wes
took over. We did the original guitar parts dry except for a little
reverb, so he added some effects. He also pulled the rhythm guitar
completely out of the first half of all the verses, which I thought
sounded great, so we do it that way live now. He also put a little
synthy-thing in that same spot, which gave it a nice little edge.
I have made it a
point to not ever ask Wes what he thought of the music, whether or
not he liked it. Jon and Rocco, yes. It was important for me to
know what they thought of what we were doing, because it was as much
theirs as mine. If I find I've brought them a song that either of
them don't like, it's gone. Wes, on the other hand, is essentially a
sub-contractor we hired to perform a service on our behalf.
The mark of his
professionalism is that he tackled the whole project with a passion,
working hard to make every note as good as it could be. I would like
to think he would put that much into any project he worked on, even
if he didn't particularly like the music. Whatever his opinion was
of what we brought him, he truly became the 4th member of
the band.
So anyway, thanks, Wes, for a job very well done. I'm honestly amazed at how good the finished product came out. It sounds better than I could have expected, and much, much better than what we'd have done on our own.
Studio Bohemo has a very good web site, http://studiobohemo.com/ and they sell gear on the side. I've got my eye on one of those D'Angelico archtops.
