| FEELING THIS:
Mark: This was the first song that we wrote for the record. The flange on Travis''s drums on the intro of the song was done the old school way, using two tape machines. When it came to writing the lyrics, Tom and I went into two different rooms, and he wrote the verses, and I wrote the choruses, without discussing the subject ahead of time. It turns out we both wrote about sex. Two different sides, the passionate, lustful side (verses) and the romantic side (choruses).
Tom: The chorus with me screaming was done in a 30 foot long living room with microphones that were 10 to 15 feet away me.
OBVIOUS:
Travis: That was a really dark song on the album, we were thinking Failure meets Led Zeppelin meets the Police. I love the verses in this song.
I MISS YOU:
Travis: This song is played with brushes and is the only loop on the record. The part in the first verse about Jack and Sally I dircted towards me and Shanna.
Tom: I'm a really big Cure fan, and one day I was listening to their song Love Cats, and I loved the idea of using a stand up bass guitar and jazz brushes. So what we ended up doing was writing a song with all acoustic.
VIOLENCE:
Tom: I thought of one thing in my head, a scenario of a bar, late at night when a pretty female walks into the building during a fast paced hardcore dance song. I thought of every guy in that room looking at her and lusting after her. Each one not paying attention to any detail present except her.
Mark: This song is a pairing of seemingly incompatible musical styles. I love the bridge. It takes the listener to such a different place very smooth and beautiful.
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME:
Mark: The beginning of this song has letters that my Grandfather wrote to my Grandmother during World War Two. Joanne Whalley came into the studio and read them. The song itself is about paranoia. Being afraid of the outside world, convinced that people can hear your thoughts.
DOWN:
Mark: This is my favorite song on the record. Travis recorded the drums in a small room of the house, using an old 1950's microphone. The chorus drums were recorded in the main tracking room. Then he recorded the fills separately, with the tape machines sped up and super compressed, so when played back at normal speed they sound really deep and gigantic. The reverb on the vocals was created by playing them into a shower.
Tom: The lyrics I wrote on Down are about a picture I had in my head of a boy and a girl inside of a car while it's raining outside. So I pictured over and over rain falling on the windshields while this guy is saying and thinking these things about wanting to kiss her and make her stay.
THE FALLEN INTERLUDE:
Mark: Jacken rules. The sounds and ideas that he created are amazing. The vocal at the end is so honest. It really expresses a man in pain.
Travis: Reminds me of driving in a car, jaded. Jack is the shit. He came in and we gave him a beat to work with at the end of Down, and I told him to elaborate on it. He wrote cool melodies, guitar and bass. I came in and switched the beat to get into the track, and did some cool percussion. It's a cool chill song to listen to and just think.
GO:
Tom: This song deserves to be played loud.
ASTHENIA:
Tom: This song is about one thing only, an astronaut sitting in a space capsule about the size of a car, floating above the earth. He's contemplating of even coming back or not will make a difference on such a negative place. A song about the loss of hope. A term was coined for the breakdown of life in space and it is called Asthenia, the name of the track. At the beginning of the song are actual NASA transmittions.
Mark: One of the coolest sonds on the entire record is Tom's guitar in the intro, when the drums come in. We plugged hisguitar into a Leslie Cabinet, and the tube in it was dying, glowing purple. It mage a gorgeous, scratchy sound that really compliments the lost in space theme song.
ALWAYS:
Mark: This is a total 80's song. At the outro, there afe four bass guitars being played. A Fender Bass VI, a Fender Precision bass doing two different things, and a Roland Synth Bass, that sounds like a keyboard. One of the things I love best about this song is Travis's percussion, using the cabassa as an accent before the snare hit.
Travis: Always I was thinking Missing Persons, so we recorded everything super dry and 80s feeling. The cymbals are on top of eachother, with cool keyboards in the outro. There's a really fast tambourine in the choruses. I think anyone can love this song. It was a simple song.
EASY TARGET:
Tom: A friend of ours told a story of when he was young, and got asked to go to the prettiest girl in high schools house. He rode his bike as fast as he could to get there, and she and her friend jumped out of the balcony and sprayed him with a hose. He rode home wet, sad, and humiliated.
ALL OF THIS:
Mark: We are all huge fans of the Cure. Having Robert Smith collaborate on a track is a total dream come true for us. We recorded this song in a rather unconventional manner. Travis recorded the kick and snare together, then went back and overdubbed the high hat, then overdubbed the ride cymbal, then overdubbed the ribbon crasher. Tom went in and recorded the acoustic guitars and the electrics. I went in and recorded the bass, using a new discovery for this album, which is a 1963 Fender Bass VI. It is ecactly like a guitar, in that it has six strings, but is tuned an octave lower. It wasn't amplified. We plugged it directly into the board. Then Roger came in and added the keyboards. Tom sang the lead first two lines for the chorus, and then we sent the track to Robert over in England. He recorded his vocals there, and sent the track back to us. We added drum fills and harmonies and added mellotron. The song was recorded in 4 different studios on 2 different continents and is one of the best on the record.
HERE'S YOUR LETTER:
Mark: This song is about people's inability to communicate with one another and how words and explanations only confuse the issues.
I'M LOST WITHOUT YOU:
Travis: The keyboards in the beginning remind me of Pink Floyd or Failure. I think the choruses are really big and lyrically it's something everyone can relate to. We recorded two drum sets for the outro. One whole track, and then I played to the click. Then I played until I couldn't stop playing. It was something we always wanted to do, but never got around to.
Tom: The original idea for this song was to have the chorus be the verse and have there be no chorus, just gigantic, heavy guitars. We worked on this song for about 6 months and it kept just getting better and better, and stranger and stranger. This song is one that could only be fully realized when listened to with headphones. To hear the 50 or so tracks that were recorded on this song, you need a dim room and a somber mood. As the song ends, two drum sets play off of each other and take you to a different place, as does each of the verses that were recorded separately from each other. One of which was a 1960's effect by singing through a rotating speaker. It sounds like I'm underwater, but it's fucking cool. The feedback in the middle of the song was a one take art form of making the guitar sound really tweaked and ugly. I say art form because to make the guitar sound that way you constantly have to twist and turn like an acrobat on drugs.
Edited by blinka182 - 22/11/2008, 00:46
|
