Hello folks!
We're sitting here at Kelsey's house reflecting on the past two weeks in the studio. To sum it up simply, it's been AMAZING! Every morning we make the half hour drive out to Austin Signal Studios around 10 a.m. Jon Niess, the owner of the studio, makes sure that there is a big fresh pot of Illy coffee ready and waiting for us (apparently that's his favorite kind of coffee, judging by the fact that there are approx. 50 empty cans of it scattered around the kitchen and the patio). Steve Mazur, our tireless sound engineer, is usually already hard at work going back through what we recorded the previous day. We spent the first couple of days with just Kelsey and I live tracking all of the songs. We tried recording them a couple different ways, but we and Ben decided that some of the magic was lost whenever we did it any other way besides playing and singing together (in case you don't know, most albums are recorded one part at a time, instead of the whole band playing together). To make us feel more comfortable, we've tended to track most of our parts wearing our tiger and bunnyrabbit onezies, naturally.
Let me take a quick step back and say this: we are extremely, extremely happy with the way everything's sounding. Making an album a slow and sometimes tedious process, but it's really starting to come together, more and more so the more instrument and vocal parts we add. The songs are starting to take shape, and it's becoming clear how everything's going to sound once it's done. We can't wait for you to hear it (and we can't wait to hear it ourselves too). Oh, also, in case you were wondering, Ben Kweller has been amazing to work with! He's very encouraging, such a fun and funny dude, and has many a great idea to contribute, no matter what part of a particular song we happen to be working on. He really believes in the project and has been a wonderful addition to the WC family. We honestly can't imagine doing "The Runaround" with any other producer.
After we finished tracking the uke and our lead vocals, we spent a couple days recording all of Carey's drum parts over the uke/vocal tracks. After that, it was Evan's turn to come in and record piano and Rhodes. We still have a few more songs to do additional drums and keys overdubs on, but not much. As soon as we added their parts in, we really started to be able to hear the songs as we've heard them in our heads for so long now.
And it only gets better from here! Tomorrow we start on cello and bass, and once we get Sadie and Chris's parts done, the finish line will be in sight. Then we'll just need to record James on the banjo, sprinkle in some finishing touches, and then start mixing. Typically we spend 14 hours a day in the studio. There's a lot of downtime--a lot. A lot of time spent finding ways to amuse ourselves. We take rides up and down the block on the razor scooter. We have epic battles of
Sports Head Football. We call each other names and come up with new and creative ways to
noob Uncle Petey. Yesterday we took a trip down memory lane and watched a bunch of videos we took while we were in the Chateau recording "Pillow Talk" in March of 2011. It's pretty amazing how differently we're doing this album. We've come a long way since then, and we feel so lucky to be getting to do "The Runaround" how we're getting to do it.
So. By the end of this week we should have most of the album tracked! Our plan is to have a single out in time for SXSW, so stay tuned. We'll definitely be keeping you guys posted on any developments. Oh, also, we just finished the Kickstarter shirt design (check it out below), and we'll be getting those out soon to those of you who donated.
Much, love,
Alexander and the Wild Children
