Pre-Production, 2018
Long story short: I do not remember recording an album to be this much fun.
I remember recording time to be a fairly stressful, overly emotional experience. You're placing a ton of focus on how you play, how you sound when you sing, the parts you have worked on, lyrics that you have chosen. You second-guess yourself. You feel like a fraud: "I'm not really a musician, am I? Certainly not as good as _______!". You are sure that the producer is disappointed in what you are doing. Sometimes that producer is unpleasant, too: a clown, or an asshole.
And that was the normal process, for me. Back then.
Not now. We are all different. Most of us are better musicians. Those that are not–just me, honestly, and that's OK, because I've been doing different kinds of art in the last decade that have made me a better artist–are generally more confident in speaking their mind, and feeling valid thoughts. I may not have become a better musician like Wardie, Johnny, Jay or Evan, but I'm a smarter musician, at least.
The producer(s) are friends, and fans of the band. They're looking out for us. They want this to succeed. They are inspired. Hilarious. They're working for less (sorry, guys!) so that we can get more done. And I hope that we can in some way repay them at some point.
Team Josh Kaler and Owen Biddle are the two guys that have the most stake in the process. We recorded nine songs with Kaler and Owen, one more than we had actually planned on, and man. These guys are going to be big names in this industry. They love music. They love songs. They love bands. They love us, and best of all didn't allow that love to blind them to the greater purpose of creating the Best Possible Arrangement for each song.
Another difference between Now and Then: the band didn't know these songs before we got into the studio. We hadn't been playing them live for weeks or months before recording them. We didn't have muscle memory in fingers set, we hadn't become attached to this lyric or that, this verse or that chorus. These songs were raw possibilities; very fleshed out raw possibilities because Jay is a producer in his own right, but we were able to see the demos as clay, still moldable. And nearly every song changed a little bit. Even more impressively, Jay was willing to see them as clay. He tried to be the perfect artist in the situation, open to any suggestions, wanting to make the songs as tight and clear as possible. There were some elements that he fought for, of course; these were his babies and it's always hard to talk about changing them. But he did good.
Each morning we'd take a song and just learn it. And choose the instruments that best suited the song. Which kick drum did the song need? Was it an upright bass song, or electric, or Moog Lil Phatty? Accordion, Fun Machine, electric mandolin, harmonica, cello, electric guitar? Then we'd have at it, moving/adding/adjusting choruses and verses and bridges until the thing felt right, felt the most "Jump, Little Children". The goal this time was to get the structure for each song, and the bass and drum parts. Vocals and other instruments will be added next month, but it was key to have the foundation, this time.
Our official visual documentarian and best friend Nathan Baerreis (http://nathanbaerreis.com)was there for large chunk of the first week. He captured some amazing footage and stills of candid recording moments. He'll be back for the next leg, so you'll be seeing his fantastic work a lot in the upcoming months on Instagram and Facebook and the like.
On the last day we were ahead of schedule, so Kaler had us put together an extra song, which I'm very happy about because I think that it might be my favorite so far. Here's a list of song names that may or may not be real:
Cyclorama
Voy Europa
Euphoria Designed
Je Suis Oblivion
Chances to Be This
Killing Juliet
Caring Lost
Boom Boom Goes the Country
Sparrow
Violets
Body Parts Two, Electric Boogaloo
Lackluster Dreams of a New Tomorrow
Eater of the Free World
Daisies
Watchful Eye
Hand on My Heartache
Reality Distortion Field
The Cardinal
That's fun, right? In this list are some pop songs in the vein of Come Out Clean, some esoteric songs more like Mother's Eyes, a couple of Jay/Matt collaborations, sweet and satisfying ones like Mexico. It's not a "retro" album…you're not going to get a remake of a sound from our past. There are new sounds, new instruments, new feelings along with the some familiar. But it's a Jump, Little Children album, without question. We knew that we had found the right arrangement and feel when Kaler would say "I love this band!" after a take.
Other current "Kaler-isms":
• when something stressful happens: "Hmm. That's very chill".
• when anyone had a good performance on a take: "you are good at music."
• when anyone had any level of differing opinion: "I hate it when my Dads fight"
• when someone didn't include him in a conversation: "cheers for the call!"
• and almost constantly…when he himself said something shocking, untoward, or rude: "Kaler! That's terrible!"
It's Josh's thing to keep people laughing, keep the mood light. He's good at it and it's very appreciated.
We didn't take a day off in the 12 that we were in Nashville. The Sunday we had free we took the song that will be our first single…oh. I didn't mention recording our first single!
We had asked our old friend Jake Sinclair to produce a song, who along with Michael Trent (Shovels and Rope), Kenny Harris (Panic @ the Disco) and Adam Blake (The Made Shop) was a member of The Films, a band that we somehow convinced to move to Charleston in the early 2000s and who did a better job of being a rock and roll band than we ever did. Everyone in that band has gone on to soaring heights, Jake included: he has been producing some of my favorite artists in the past decade (Weezer, Sia) and playing with all kinds of fun bands. It was touching to us, and kind of a big deal for him to try to fit in some production work into his busy schedule; he's currently on tour with Beck. But the stars continue to be aligned for little old us: Beck came to Nashville for a couple of days and Jake hopped off the bus and ran in and recorded a song, fully, in two days.
We called Jake the "Tasmanian Angel" because he's very sweet and very intense. He is a human whirlwind. He had done his homework, knew what he wanted to hear, which instruments, which arrangements, etc. He rarely sat down. When we got the drums and bass done, he grabbed a guitar and played two extra parts. He threw us all down into an echo-y room and had us sing "gang vocals": vocals featuring all five of us. He wanted each verse phrase to be accented by claps (which he called "friends"), so we were tossed into a booth and clapped through the song. It was a blast. We are so proud of and honored to work with him.
The Sunday we had off we spent the day making a video for this single that we recorded with Jake. We didn't really have a budget for a video, but once again Lady Luck was looking out for us. She sent our old friend Matthew Sterling our way, who was responsible for the funniest and most interesting parts of our Jump, Little Children DVD. Matt has become a total pro, and is currently putting together visuals to go with the song for publicity. We hope that there is an edit that features our official studio dog, Bernie. And one that stars our friend Clay as "the stalker".
By the way…if you'd like to help us pay for these incredible folk that are donating time and energy to our cause, you can do so by going to http://pledgemusic.com/jump-little-children . Your pledges will get you a copy of the album, of course, but will also allow us to stop begging favors from these incredible artists. Thank you, thank you.
Next steps! We're listening to the roughs made during this time. We'll have some tweaks and other ideas. Then we go back for overdubs, adding official vocals instead of the "scratch" ones, harmonies, different instruments. The songs will continue to evolve, change, take form. But we have such a great base for the nine so far. Then we head to Charleston to record a few with that town's new producing celeb, Wolfgang Zimmerman. Don't try to stop us!
Knock on wood…we're going to make the best album ever.
