Back In The Studio

As soon as I stepped back into the recording studio again, the same one I had spent so many hours in when the band had been together, I felt like I was back where I belonged. It felt very comfortable, very relaxed, and very familiar...almost like coming home. I was surrounded by friends I had played and worked with, in an environment I loved, determined to salvage what I could from the experience that had been Avalanche. Everyone there seemed to feel the same way...there was a real sense of mission and purpose from everyone, and I knew that I had picked the right people for these first songs. If it didn't work with these guys...it wasn't going to work. Something had changed in the way Tommy and Michael, the drummer and bass player I had hired for these sessions related to me that I hadn't expected and wasn't really prepared for. There was a respect for what I was trying to do with them that was new. These guys were clearly honored to have been selected for this, and they made it clear that they were going to give me 110%. I had just thought of them as friends and musicians who I had always been comfortable with...and hadn't realized that their perception of me had changed. I felt inspired, and it made for a very pleasant work environment. We spent the first night setting up, and doing some jamming, since it had been years since we had played together, and they had never played with such powerful equipment or at such high volume levels...which, for them, took some getting used to. By midnight, we were all getting pretty comfortable with it, and I began to take them through the basics of the song, letting them get an idea of the chords, the arrangement of verses and bridges, and the structure, which had a fairly complex series of changes in it. We played for a couple of hours, but I decided that we would wait until the following night to begin recording the rehearsals since it was late...and I wanted everyone to sleep on it...to be sure they had a grasp of the song and it's arrangement. I also wanted everyone to be fresh and rested before we even thought about recording the actual takes, which I knew might happen quickly if the recorded rehearsals indicated we were ready. As I drove home, I felt an optimism about the project. It was a good feeling...but I knew there was an awful lot of work ahead of me...