The Hold Steady studio diary - Stay Positive - #8

Dean, the studio co-owner got me back on track, and I arrived at the front door of the studio. After we loaded all my stuff inside, I got comfortable in the control room and started the rigorous process of intense listening.

Every control room is different, and the acoustics effect the way things sound, which affects the way we record sounds, so I like to do some major listening in any new control room. This way I know if a control room has extra low end or a lack of it, etc. The song I use is “Get Me” from one of my favorite Dinosaur Jr records. It’s one I worked on, so I am very familiar with the range of frequencies on the record.

Anyway, after listening a bunch, I put up the first song we would tackle. Craig was going to be up first to do some singing. I put up a rough mix of the song “Adderall” and got a headphone mix. We set up the microphone, made sure everything was working and then awaited Mr. Finn’s arrival. Sure enough, at 2:45 p.m., Craig calls my cellphone to tell me he’s on the way. And he arrives 20 minutes later.

After a bit of small talk about the band’s great weekend in Ybor City, we get to business. Craig goes out and starts warming up on singing “Adderall.” From the beginning, I noticed he sounded a bit scratchy in his throat. Thinking this was something that he needed to work out, we did the normal routine of tea for the vocal chords. The thing was that it didn’t get better. Chalking it up to the fact that it’s a harder song to sing, we moved along to “Sequestered In Memphis.” Craig still had that same quality in his voice.

Around this point, Tad showed up to the studio to get ready to take over the recording in the second half of the session.

John: “So how was the show?”

Tad: “Great, We raged!”

John: “Really?”

Tad: “Check out these pictures from the weekend!”

Tad flipped open his computer and showed me a bunch of pictures of all the guys rocking out at some karaoke bar in Tampa. He had a bunch of great pictures of Craig wailing on some classic Rush song.

I thought to myself, “Self, I think we’ll give Craig a few days off to rest his voice.” After one more pass at “Sequestered,” Craig came in and we rethought the schedule. With plenty of guitars to do and other bits and pieces, and the fact that Craig already sang the shit out of about five songs at Water Music, I wasn’t particularly worried about the schedule. Yet. And Tad, the master rocksman, was more than happy to jump into the recording situation.

It’s like making lemonade out of lemons. Craig’s voice is a little rough after a long weekend of show and after-show activity, so let’s shut him down for a few days. Obviously, he had no problem with that, being able to feel the roughness on his vocal chords.

So now it was time to set up guitars and amps and other fun things. Tad wanted to jump right in with an idea he had about a solo in a song called “Joke About Jamaica.” One of the differences on this record to B&GIA is that Tad really stretches out and has room to do more soloing. The previous record did not afford him as much space to do that. And I think he came into the record wanted to make a mark with his choice of solos and his approach to playing them.

Well, “Jamaica” has a two-part solo that is separated by a breakdown that just features guitar. And Tad had the brilliant idea of doing the second part of the solo, that starts during the breakdown, with a talkbox. Everyone remembers the talkbox! Peter Frampton. Richie Sambora. Slash. Joe Walsh. All the greats have played it. And I’m sure some of the non greats. It’s a sound that is brilliant and ridiculous at the same time.

It’s a great concept using the player’s mouth to alter the effect. The guitar is plugged into the box, which generates sound through a tube in the player’s mouth. Talking or making any noise then gives the guitar that “talkbox” effect. A microphone is placed alongside the tube and that picks up the sound coming out of said player’s mouth.

Everyone at the studio mulled around while Tad was setting it up and we all were laughing pretty hard when he started making sounds with it. It’s just a funny sound taken out of context.

Upon returning to the control room, we brought up the mics and starting running the solo for Tad. It was immediately clear that this solo was going to be great! So the second chorus leads into the first solo, which is more of a standard rock solo, though very tasty. That solo ends in a hail of feedback which leads into a bass breakdown and then BAM! The talkbox enters in all it’s grandeur.

We got the right take of it and Tad came in the control room to listen to it and agreed that it was the one. He then commented that he was glad to be done, because he was tired of having the vibrating tube in his mouth. Apparently, it’s teeth-rattling good!

We moved on to other guitar bits and did our obligatory electric sitar part for the record. On B&GIA, we doubled the main rhythm guitar on “You Can Make Him Like You” with the sitar the whole length of the song. I loved the texture it gave the song. It reminded me of my favorite Dinosaur Jr song, “The Wagon.” Tad, not one to miss a beat, decided he wanted to put it in the breakdown on “Magazines.” It creates a nice scene change when it goes to the breakdown and the guitar gets all ringy.

Over the next few days we kept in touch with Craig to get status reports on how he felt and we continued doing overdubs with Tad. Things were still moving along well, but I was ready for Craig to return and start knocking out vocals. Which he did on the Thursday. And he sounded like his old Finn-ish self. We immediately got back into vocal mode and he started knocking songs out, one by one. He nailed “Stay Positive” first, which was a gimmie. He was so ready for that one, having sang it countless times and it’s being right in the wheelhouse of his vocal range. That opened the floodgates for many more vocals.

Craig had been spending a lot of time tweaking these songs over the last few weeks, so there was little tweaking to be done with the content. Here and there, he asked my opinion on issues pertaining to phrasing, and I had him change his delivery on a few songs to make the section build, but for the most part, he had it going on. We had a great five days of doing vocals, and then we would bring various people in to give Craig a break.

We were halfway finished with overdubs and the spirit in the session was high!