The Hold Steady studio diary - Stay Positive - #5

[Above, L-R: Bobby Drake and John Agnello]

Things are really rolling. We’ve been tracking furiously and the band is really hitting their stride. We’ve nailed easier songs like “Stay Positive” and harder ones like “Creepy Jam,” which will end up being called “One For The Cutters.” That song became one of my favorites early on. We cut it live with Franz playing the intros and verses with a synth harpsichord simulation. We knew we needed a real harpsichord on the song, but we had to find one that was accessible. But that would be for another day.

Now we were concentrating on getting the best of Bobby and Galen, our erstwhile rhythm section. “Cutters” is a song that has many sections and each needs to have its own particular dynamic. The verses have that weird Brecht/Doors reverberant type feel and really need to groove. It’s all about the mood. The choruses have to build and have more aggression. And by the time we get to the bridge, the song has to explode. So we were going to have to be very specific about the way that track developed. By the time Craig gets to the second of the bridges, the track really has to soar. And hit really hard. It is the payoff, after all.

It turns out to not be an issue for Bobby, who is on this song like white on rice. Or like prick on a neo-con. By the time we get to the third take, he’s playing it so well that we do one more for good luck, do a quick analog edit and the track is done. So far tracking is going smoother than I could have hoped for. We take a break and get ready to move on to another complicated song, “Slapped Actress.” This is the monster riff that became a song in rehearsal. It started with Tad playing the intro riff over and over again and everyone really digging it.

Well, here we are at Water Music and it’s time to track this sucker. “Slapped Actress” is pretty dense and it’s still really fresh with the band. In fact, we still haven’t decided how it will end. We start running it down and it’s sounding really good. We do a take and everyone joins me in the control room for a playback. We agree that it should end with a fade on the “monster riff.” A nice, slow fade.

But to add an extra taste to the fade, Tad came up with a group vocal melody which became the “whoas” at the end of the song. And that tied the whole ending together. We fade the music and you have the “whoas” carrying on the end. That is what’s great about this band. Many ideas. And a lot of them are great.

So the boys go back out to the studio and start hammering out the song. Everyone is really focused and playing their asses off. Franz is bashing away at the piano furiously and playing some wonderful ad libs at the end. I said before that the song was new. All the time during tracking, Franz was still working out his part and really got it going towards the outro. So after we got the master take, Franz and I went back and re-recorded his part. It came out great and his melodies really work at the end around the vocals.

With no rest on our schedule, it’s time to move on to another important song, the centerpiece of the record, “Lord I’m Discouraged.” From the first day of rehearsal, when the band ran this song down, I got chills. Craig really had a great handle on the lyrics even back then. And the song really moved in a beautiful way.

Tad wrote this song in a hotel room somewhere in Europe. It’s got a beautiful, lonesome feel to it. He decided during tracking to play his 12-string electric on the basic track. It’s a sweet, chimey, yet overdriven sound. It totally fits the mood of the song. Visually, the guitar is a beast. It’s a Gibson double neck guitar, with a 6-string neck and a 12-string neck. It weighs a ton. I remember the first time Tad played that guitar. It was at Irving Plaza in NYC, the first show of the Boys and Girls In America tour. He used it for three songs and then needed a chiropractor.

We started tracking “Lord I’m Discouraged” and it really felt great. This was one song in particular that Bobby really was on in rehearsal. He really feels the half-time songs great. On the previous record, I felt like he gave “First Night” the laid back feel that it needed. Nice and relaxed and with every snare hit just a shade behind the beat enough to make it totally hypnotic.

So Bobby had the same feel for “Lord I’m Discouraged,” and it worked great. When we rehearsed that song I wanted to make sure it ended on a real melodic note. I wanted to make sure there was a real payoff to the song. The band added the end vamp which repeated the cool lyric that Craig had, “Excuses and half truths and fortified wine.” Which worked great to me. It made sure that the song ended on a powerful note. And then Craig added the last line which ties up the lyric: “ I know it’s unlikely she’ll ever be mine. So I hopefully pray she don’t die.” To me that’s genius. And that’s why people love Craig’s thing. He is something special.

Bobby nails another tough song and we are doing great. This is why I love Bobby Drake. He is a down to earth, badass, hard working motherfucker. The guy never complains and works so hard to make the right takes happen. The only time I remember him having a fit was the day he was getting shit about playing drums and he made a stand. We were rehearsing for B&GIA and he just stopped playing and said, “If it’s so easy, why don’t you play the drums!” And he offered his sticks to each person there and we all stared at him. Obviously, we knew that he had the hardest job and after that we gave him a bit more room. Well earned, I might add.

Point being that without Bobby’s inner fortitude, we would never have the foundation we had on either record. Knowing and working with Bobby has made me a happier person. He’s one of my favorite people in the world.

It’s a week into the tracking sessions and we are ahead of schedule. Which is a good thing. We originally had only 12 days booked at Water Music. And then we were going to take a few days off and start up at Wild Arctic in Long Island City. Some time during rehearsals in December, a show came up in Ybor City, Tampa that the band had to do. It was scheduled for the 18^th or so of January.

With us doing so well at Water Music, I decided to juggle the schedule a bit. Instead of finishing up at Water Music, taking a day off to move the gear and then work two days before taking a three-day weekend while the band was in Florida, I decided we should stay at Water Music until the band returned from the show. We were all pretty comfortable and I figured it’d be better not to uproot everyone and then have two days of settling in to Wild Arctic and then a day to settle in when they returned.

With that bit of minutiae taken care of, we forged ahead with the tracking...

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Read Agnello's previous blog posts about the creation of Stay Positive, which comes out tomorrow (July 15):

#1

#2

#3

#4