This past weekend, my wife and I began recording our first album together. This is going to be a bit of an Addison Road family project. The Stick Man has agreed to mix. Corey is going to do the art design. (Psst, Corey! Wanna do the art design?  You can join Stick in the “Working for Far Less Then You’re Worth” club.) I will be shocked if at some point, our fearless host doesn’t get involved playing some absurdly kick ass keyboard part that I will claim was me in the credits.

I thought it would be a fun act of public indecent exposure to pick one song and post it several times, in various stages of completion. It’s going to be like a sonic journal for us, and your mean comments will help us lower our expectations for people’s responses. You have an important duty. Please start telling us we suck.

So here’s where this track stands:

The vocals are most likely going to go to mix pretty much as they stand. We’re pretty stoked with the performances, and barring a sudden change in either personal taste or singing ability, I think they’re about where they’re gonna be. However, they’re not edited, tuned, automated, or in any way cleaned up. One of the main reasons I wanted to get Stick in on this is that vocals tend to come back from his place sounding significantly better then when they arrived. I can’t wait to hear them after he sprinkles his pixie dust on them.

A brief side note; we are trying to keep our vocal arrangements simpler and less layered then the typical CCM record, which has stacks and stacks of extremely earnest singing. There is basically no “ear candy” in the vocals at this point. Everything you hear is either just a solo or double. There will be layers and additional background vocals (BGVs) and parts that go in up the road, but we really wanted to take this weekend and focus on getting great leads, and we got through about 2 1/2 tunes, so that’s good. As you hear empty 4-8 bar sections at the top and bottom, know that there will be additional vocals in these gaps.

The drums are programmed temps, and are going to be replaced by Russ Miller in the next two weeks. Russ is one of the best drummers in L.A., no hyperbole whatsoever. This will be the single most dramatic improvement to this (or any other) track… followed closely by…

…Guitars. There’s a temp piano part that basically fills the space where slamming, distorted guitars should be. Most of the programming will most likely be ditched and reset to compliment the guitars parts.

The bass part is actually me, playing my Fender Jazz bizzass. I think I will most likely hire a pro to swap it out, but I am a little proud of it, and will tell myself that their pass isn’t that much better then mine. This will be a lie.

“So… umm… Chad…?”

Yes?

“Umm… so… there’s like basically very little on this recording that will actually make it?”

Pretty much.

“Don’t the vocals normally go last?”

Why yes Billy, they normally do. Here’s the problem… I find that I am able to get better performances out of the players when I have a solid vocal for them to play against. It’s a way that I can communicate the feel and direction of the tune in ways a chart never will.

I wrote this song last year as we were going through Genesis. I was so struck by Jacob, and his unfortunate need to try and tweak whatever situation he was in to his own advantage. I am not a patient man. I want what I want, yesterday. I am poor at resting and trusting. I wrote this song as a reminder to myself just to chill the crap out.

We had a hard task this weekend. We had to, as I like to put it, reach into the void and pull something out. It’s a vacuum that all artists, in any medium must stare down. We must look at the blank canvas (or computer screen) and see the creation that’s yet to be. It’s thrilling, and absolutely terrifying.

Thanks for taking a moment and joining us on this journey.

Enjoy.