Throughout this process of recording a new record, I have actually gotten surprisingly a lot more sleep than I expected. Most of our nights ended fairly early in the grand scheme of things. I still haven’t been able to sleep past seven most mornings though because my mom brain is still fully in motion. My body aches from recording, from stressing over things out of my control, from trying to soak it all in before it slips right back through my fingers once more.
Day four began with finishing up tracking the vocals for the last two remaining songs. I stuffed myself back in the vocal closet and sweated my way through each track. I am really proud of the backing vocals that I wrote for this project. I have always had a fairly difficult time writing harmonies that I sing with myself. I’m so used to backing up male voices that this territory is fairly new to me. Ryan also added some percussion and flavor to the songs.
Day four brought with it my dear friend, Zach. I have spent the last few months of my life waiting for the day when we would be in the same room as one another and not 1200 miles apart trying to send each other voice memos via our phones of tracking ideas. If there’s anyone in this world that understands how I tick musically, it’s this man. Our friendship spans over a decade and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have play guitar and bass on a project. He came in and added so much goodness that caused me to get out of my comfort zone and shaped the songs in a way I know I never could. He is the missing piece to these songs that are so close to my heart. I never wanted the days to end because I knew that got us that much closer to being so far away once more. I will miss him very much, until our paths cross again once more.
Playing and creating music with people as good as this causes my heart to just ache. I realize how lucky I am to be able to come up and here and do this project. I realize how much I want these people to be in my life for a very, very long time. When you create together, you are more attached to each other. I think that’s why Ryan drumming on this project is so great. Being married, it’s like we have this second sense about songs, even when tracking live and not being able to see one another at all. Music really does bring people together and I am so very thankful for that and it will be something I treasure forever.
Day five brought some more recording time, mostly guitars and bass. I also got to track some organ on an old pump organ. That's a lot harder than it looks. I kept having to remember that I need to keep pumping my feet so that sound actually continued to come from the organ.
We didn’t get a ton of tracking done on this day but it did give us the opportunity to head to Portland. I love that city so much. Every time I get to go back there, no matter how long or short of a trip, I also try to soak it in. We went to Powell’s, bought too many books and then had dinner at Killer Burger. Beer was had. I ate a burger with peanut butter on it and that’s truly a heavenly experience. More beer was had after we got back into town. I soaked in every moment that I could.
Day 4 & 5.
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