Diary of the recordings of the Wuthering Heights album, "The Shadow Cabinet"
18.03.06: The drums are recorded!!
Morten and I spent four days last week at Jailhouse Studios in Horsens,
Denmark, recording the drums for the upcoming Wuthering Heights album.
Everything went basically according to plan, we used all the time we
had booked, but we didn´t have to cut any corners - four days was the
time needed. Here´s a little overlook at the proceedings for you all.
Cheers!
ERIK
Wednesday, 09.03.06
We arrived late Wednesday night - in freezing cold - so that we could
start first thing Thursday. We spend the night at the nice house that
Jailhouse uses for the bands to camp in. Morten had cleverly brought a
bottle of Caol Ila single malt, which was put to good use. On the other
hand he had forgotten his new twenty pairs of drumsticks, so maybe he
should work a bit on his priorities (nah!). There is not much to do in
Horsens at night, so we just watched some TV - which was as ridiculous
here as anywhere - and basically chilled out, preparing for the
demanding days ahead.
Thursday, 10.03.06
Producer Tommy
Hansen and Morten started setting up the kit. This time we´ve used a
Ludwig drumkit, which is somewhat oldschool, but has so much depth and
power that it´s just perfect for the really heavy stuff we´re doing
this time. The tom sound is like thunderclashes - really cool! We´ve
recorded the real drum sound all the way. We might end up mixing some
triggered samples into the real sound, like we´ve sometimes done
before, but I´m not sure - it sounds really majestic already. So, time
for a soundcheck, which didn´t take Tommy very long. He knows his
studio, he knew this drumkit and he generally just knows what he´s
doing. So after a quick lunch of semi-rotten herrings (a tradition when
I record at Tommy´s place), we went into recording. Morten wanted to
start out tough with the song "Demon Desire", which is quite demanding.
It took a few hours, but of course he had to get used to the situation
of the recording process again. The Ludwig kit already proved its worth
here, it stood up to Morten´s beatings and just provided even, heavy,
organic sound - the way we like it. We continued to record "Beautifool"
which is a little less challenging for Morten. We didn´t quite finish
it this day, though. We ate some discusting cheap lasagne and watched
"The Return of the King" before crashing relatively early.
Friday, 11.03.06
Tommy arrived a little later, so we were quite starving for coffee.
Fortunately the studio has a coffemachine that must be build for speed
metal musicians, it´s that fast. Tommy suggested that we skipped
finishing "Beautifool" right now, and instead tried to get as many of
the basic drumparts recorded. A good idea, ´cause it always eases the
preasure to get some stuff on tape (or disc these days), instead of
niggling with some silly breaks or something. So, hyped up on coffein
and nicotine, Morten went on to do "The Raven", which didn´t take very
long. We had talked about using a piccolo snaredrum for the main riff,
but I think we will keep the regular one, since there´s so much life
and power in it as it is. Next up was "Faith", a long track that took
some work. The song ends with an acoustic folkpiece, which we saved for
later. After more herrings we continued with the song "Envy". It has
some relatively straight main parts, but breaks down into some more
progressive stuff along the way. A cowbell was set up (with tape) for
one particular part. This day Morten again struggled on in good spirit,
nailing even the fastest and trickiest parts perfectly. Some of these
songs are just so METAL, that it´s quite fun to be in the studio, even
if you sometimes listen to the same stuff over and over. We continued a
little over time this day, since we started a bit late. Our dear
manager Claus came by to check on the proceedings but continued on with
other business to attend to. We had pasta and sausages and watched
"American Pie - The Wedding", which is totally pointless but quite
fitting after a day of hard metal workout. The TV showed an old
documentary on my favorite band Gasolin´ - I´ve seen it a million times
of course, but it´s always nice to see the boys rock - even if it´s in
black´n´white. Morten managed to fall a sleep in his chair -
understandably.
Saturday, 12.03.06
Another terribly cold day, but more warm coffee, and we´re ready to
rock. First up is the song "Snow", which is relatively straight heavy
metal, at least for our standards. Morten nailed it without much
trouble. Next up was the semi-ballad "Sleep", which however ends in
all-out speed metal. Again, no problem for the drummerboy. However,
things couldn´t go on this smoothly, of course. On the next song, "I
Shall Not Yield", Morten´s usual photographic memory of songstructures
seemed to not work that well. A few runthroughs of the song and we
decided to skip this one for now and continue with something else to
clear the air. We started on another long track "Seize The Night"
(according to Tommy it´s not as long as it seems when you listen to it
- HAHAHA!), which proved only slightly less complicated, not only
because it´s the fastest song on the album. However after a lot of
takes, we had it, except for one minor detail. Claus had joined us
again, this time bringing a lot of beer, which of course is a manager´s
finest task. It was time for a viking meal, so we went to buy some
meat. The dear Claus, however, is no trained touristguide, so we had a
nice drive through what should be his hometurf, before we finally found
the takeaway-place - which by then of course had sold out. After some
more driving we found another place, and returned homeward armed with
two big cases of ribs and fries. As cow and beer went in, the spirit
rose again. The pile of bones on the table afterwards was just stupid
and we all sat like beached whales on each couch. Anyway, we listened
through the remaining songs several times, so Morten could get a grasp
of the structure. The rest of the night was spent listening to music,
mainly Jethro Tull.
Sunday, 13.03.06
The last day, and with quite a lot of work to do. First thing up was to
do that final detail on "Seize The Night". That didn´t take long. Then
we started again on "I Shall Not Yield", and this time it worked. No
stress or confussion on Morten´s part, just sheer metal power. A real
fun song in fact, quite the heavy metal cliché, but very effective.
Next we finished off "Beautifool" which we had started on the first
day. No problems there, Morten was really rolling now. So with all the
tough songs done, we had two easier ones to go. First up was "Midnight
Song", which was done in under an hour, I think. And finally the
coversong, "Shadow Of A Gipsy" (originally recorded by Ache in 1971).
Here Morten and Tommy experimented with a few different cymbals to get
a more Seventies-sound. The song went great, and was a fitting end,
since it ends in total blastbeats. The final few hours was spend mixing
down the drumtracks, so that we can bring them to BlueFlame Studio,
where we are gonna record guitars and bass. We still had a few minutes
left, and we did a few takes of the acoustic ending to "Faith". A real
primitive drumkit was set up and recorded with just an
overhead-microphone, in order to get an authentic sound, like someone
playing in a pub. It´s always funny to do stuff like this, especially
with Tommy who has a life´s worth of gear - it´s like a musician´s
toystore. A bit of different instrumentation always brings life to a
recording. So, that was the end of another great session at Jailhouse.
Morten drove home to Southern Jutland, and Claus and I took the train
back to Copenhagen with the CD´s, which will be the basis of the next
recordings for the album. And what a basis! Once more Morten has graced
our music with his amazing talent and set the bar even higher for
others to follow. And all in four short days in a cottage in Jutland.
´EAVY F´KIN´ METAL!!
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