LANTVRN plays super dark, sludged-out psychedelic rock thats heavily black metal inspired. Sound neat? Its badass. These sessions are a bit hazy for me, but im pretty sure we all had fun. Ahhhh, rock n roll. The band tracked all the basics live and did most the songs in one or a few takes. Even the lead vocal that made it on the album was the original live one. It was really heartfelt and powerful and could not be replaced. Fuck yea. Thats how its supposed to go.
Now in the hands of producer Bron Tieman (CROOKED COWBOY and THE FRESHWATER INDIANS) - The rest was a whirlwind of overdubs and running effects thru pedals, amps and whatever we could fuck up sounds with. I remember running around like a mad man re-amping things, printing time based effects, mixing and sub-mixing tracks while the band worked out ideas in the next room or took a break. There was alot of creative energy in the air, so i made sure the tracking rooms were always ready to go. This album was originally supposed to be done on a 1" 16 track Tascam machine that Bron rescued from abandon. Poor dude spent an entire day driving up and down California to get the machine in time for the session. When I inspected and cleaned the tape machine, I found out that the capstan was really funky and the whole motor assembly needed major work. So we ended up doing everything in Pro-Tools but had an extremely analog workflow, if you will. At the end of the day Pro-Tools and magnetic tape are just the medium to capture the recording. Having a calculated work flow with minimal distractions and committing to ideas is usually the easiest way to capture the music and vibe, which is the important part, i think ha! Bron sorta has a saying thats pretty fun; when everyone agrees on something, such as a take being good etc, he will say "Stamp It!" Meaning its good, and lets move on. Bron has a great way of working with bands. He keeps their spirits high and manages to trim away all the fat, leaving only the good stuff and usually adding on some needed extra spice. In the end, I am glad we used Pro-Tools. Our track count was around 49 by the time I mixed, and the automation was just insane.
Another badass thing is synth wizard Neil Schuh (Crooked Cowboy, Jeffertittti's Nile, Dazzler) played some wicked synths and keyboard tracks back at his apartment (which i like to call Neil's Emporium of Awesome Shit) and sent them back them over the web. Meanwhile at the studio, I set Cameron up with his vocal track and a vintage Yamaha 1010 delay straight into the console to play with his vocal, riding the delay in and out and oscillating the feedback. Cameron also added a couple layers of sound through various pedals and effects. When I threw all the tracks together and smoothed out all the transitions and dynamics, the songs got sent into another dimension.
I really like the drum sound i got on "Sleeper/Awaken". 98% of the drum sound is coming from that mic in front of the kick drum about knee high, a Mojave MA-201fet thru a Distressor set to "fucked up". You can really hear the live room complimenting the groove on the second half of the song.
In another iso room was a sweet snake-skin Selmer amp (woo! tongue twister!), I threw on a prototype Ma-101fet and a Royer 121 for good measure. The Ma-101fet gave me a little clarity and bite while the 121 gave me a lot of girth, so i didn't really use any eq except for some filters on the low end. Oh, this is kind of interesting, Bron requested to have the guitar thinned out to match some surf records he really digs. It was a great sound but i was worried that if i committed to such a drastic eq, i might be screwed later when mixing. I quickly remembered what the sound was like when i was testing phase between the mics, so i flipped the polarity on one of the mics, and presto! there was Bron's sound. Now if we wanted a thicker sound in the guitar later during mixing, all i had to do was flip it back...which i think we ended up doing!
Here is a funny clip of me walking around wondering what room i should use for the next overdub session, you can kind of hear me mumble "i gotta clear this shit out.." Ha!!
LANTVRN's ep was just released and featured in Amoeba Hollywood's Pick of the month. Check it out here
There is a limited edition cassette version available here.
A neat video for one of the songs:
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