A Lesser Tragedy
In early 2013, my prospects weren’t particularly encouraging. My only jobs were teaching one guitar student and a dwindling freelance gig. Something with Trees had recently disbanded, I was living at home, and I was rapidly going through the little money that I had. But I was safely nestled behind that impenetrable wall of “but I’m in school” to keep any pointed naysayers at bay. My life may have looked a little disheveled, but I was a good little pupil. I was getting an education!
Seems like the perfect time to record in (and pay for) an actual recording studio, yeah?
After Something with Trees ended, I had big plans for my music. The band had been successful enough to make me believe that my music had what it took to grow into something. In short, I was excited. The eight new songs I was prepping for the studio were better than what I had written previously; I was confident about that. Losing the talents of my bandmates, though, meant losing their talents around the songs, so I enlisted my brother, Kevin, to fill in the gaps.
I chose Earth Analog Studio in Tolono, IL. The choice was a “friend of a friend of a friend works there” situation. The bill was to be about $1,000 for two days. It wasn’t a bad deal as far as studio costs go…if you had a job.
Procuring $1,000 at that period of my life was a real challenge, a death sentence to the project even. I went to social media.
“Anybody want to give me $1,000 so I can record my new album lol?”
I, of course, did not expect anyone to give me that money. Nor did I want them to. But what I did want —what I always wanted from social media— was attention. And I got it:
“You’re recording another album?! Yes!”
“Omg, I can’t wait!” “Ahhhhh! Excited!”
But then an acquaintance from high school chimed in: “We should talk about this. Let’s meet up.”
What followed was a meeting at a local coffee shop. Kind of like a business proposal sort of meeting. I expressed the bones of the project, how I intended the project to make some money, and, ultimately, how he was going to recoup his initial investment.
He was in.
Ah, going into debt to record your album. Does it get any more rock n’ roll than that? This was exactly the kind of story that would be a great trivia nugget when I was playing to theaters and concert halls: “Did you know that he had to borrow money to get his first album recorded?” I would become the validation for the folderol about believing in yourself, and standing in defiance even when no one else stands with you.
I scheduled the dates. March 29th and 30th, 2013.
Kevin and I got to work on rehearsing. If we didn’t go in fully prepared, there was little chance of actually completing the project in two days’ of studio time. And I was already going into debt for the first two days; the last thing I needed was an unfinished record that I couldn’t afford to finish.
It was now late February. I reached out to my high school acquaintance (and newly-minted business partner) to arrange the transactions.
Silence.
I waited a week and tried again.
More silence. I waited another week before I started getting worried.
“Hey, man. We’re only about two weeks from the recording dates. I need to think about collecting the money from you so I can be ready to pay everyone. If you’re no longer willing, I need to know so I can make other arrangements.”
Still more silence. To this day, I haven’t heard from him —no, he didn’t die; I checked.
Whether it was just cold feet, or someone told him he was a moron for investing in a songwriter, or some kind of financial calamity befell him, I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was about a week away from my recording dates and had no way to pay for it.
I thought of everyone I could —anyone who might be capable or willing to lend me the money. I finally landed on one of my former bosses. I met with him, explained the situation, and came to an arrangement that said I would pay him a percentage of all sales until he was repaid, but if any of the debt remained when I received my financial aid reimbursement in the fall (some six months later), I would pay the remaining debt off with that. He agreed; I breathed one of the deeper sighs of relief of my life.
Armed with the $1,000, I headed to Tolono, IL—just outside of Champaign/Urbana. Though I was staying in the studio’s apartment overnight, Kevin was only coming down for the second day of recording. The first was going to be focused on recording acoustic guitar and vocals on all of the tracks, which was singularly my job.
It seemed appropriate that after touring the studio and setting my clothes in the apartment, I dove right in with Mike (my engineer). I started, perhaps logically, on what was going to be the album’s first track: “Lightposts.”
I made it through the first verse and chorus before I made my first mistake. I stopped, already starting to feel the nerves and pressure of being “on the clock” for the first time in my recording life.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” I said.
“No problem, man. Want to give it another go?”
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
I made it to the bridge this time. But another mistake.
“Before you start again, let me adjust one of the mics,” Mike said as he came down from the control room. As he made his adjustments, he said something that was, unknowingly to him, a huge kindness to someone like me who craves other people not hating him. Not only was I feeling pressured to get everything done in the time allotted, I hated the idea of my engineer rolling his eyes in frustration every time I botched a take.
“It’s so nice to work with someone who has their stuff together,” he said, “I can tell you are super rehearsed. I work with a lot of bands who come into the studio and have no idea what they want to do with the songs. It is so frustrating.”
I got “Lightposts” on the next take.
One of the quirks of Earth Analog is that it is dangerously close to an active railroad track. Well, dangerous as far as trying to record an album goes.
“Just waiting on the train,” Mike would say as I stood at the ready, and a roaring train whistle passed by outside. And since “Train City” was still four years away, I didn’t have any train-themed songs that might make this an asset. Instead, it was a modest inconvenience that delayed the starting of many takes by a minute or two, but only interrupted a few in the middle of the action.
Earth Analog had a beautiful collection of vintage instruments all waiting to be dropped into any band’s project. So, while the primary acoustic guitar you hear across the record is my Parker, sneaking around the album is a several-times-more-expensive Gibson —the lead riffs on “The Balloonist,” for instance, are from that guitar. The bass guitar, the percussion, the rain stick were all on loan from their collection.
Kevin and I had only rehearsed with lead guitar and harmony vocals. When we arrived at Earth Analog and realized we had access to a bass —Kevin has years’ worth of experience— that changed our plan. Thankfully, that experience translated into Kevin coming up with compelling, tight bass lines throughout most of the songs in comparatively short order. As he would say a few weeks later when we received the recordings:
“You know, it’s kind of depressing how much we rehearsed all these extra parts and the bass that we added at the last minute is the best thing we did.”
There was a stairwell that connected the studio to the apartment above. It was here Mike and I decided we would record the album’s closing track, “Lesser Tragedies.” I think you can hear it in the production —a little more natural reverb of the space, but also a little warmer than much of the guitar on the album. Maybe we’ll talk about that song soon around here.
The process was mostly smooth as I remember it. I steadily worked through each of the songs, putting in about ten hours each day. The final thing I did before walking out the door was to add a single turn of the rain stick at the beginning and end of “Call the Rain Down.” Even in the moment I thought that might be a little too cute. If I was doing it now, I probably wouldn’t add it, but I guess I decided that once on each side of the song was enough to add a dynamic without adding an eye roll from the listener.
I shook Mike’s hand, paid the studio their money, and got into my car to drive back to Peoria. And one month later, April 29, 2013, Lesser Tragedies was born —the opening Metropolitan Guide salvo. I gave my former boss a free copy. It wasn’t his style.
But he got his investment back. A Lannister always pays his debts.