Environment vs Vibe vs Acoustic Perfection vs Whiskey
I am a firm believer in not only creating a good ‘vibe’ for the band to record in but making sure the entire experience of recording surpasses anything they’ve dealt with in the past. There are many thoughts and theories behind the art of ‘recording music, capturing performances and making records’, and I have my feet firmly in the territory of ‘A great song + (a great performance + sexy vibe) = A great experience (to the power of a great recording)’. So with this in mind the compromise of perfect acoustics vs an environment where people were equally relaxed as they were focused and excited was a no brainer.
Personally it was also as much of a challenge as it was an experience. The wood cabin (named Kea Aura.. i know.. good eh) is simply gorgeous. Featuring a large open planned living/sleeping area with an exposed wood ceiling, I set up a bunch of room mics to capture the vibe. I then proceeded to place the band ‘in and around’ the room trying to use the bleed from each instrument to my advantage of a roomy feel for the other’s mics. That and the fact that the band don’t like using click tracks or even using many overdubs means that it makes for an interesting, exciting and challenging concept for all involved. I was so very much into giving this a good nudge as these days every other studio or engineer seems to be talking about beat detective tips, re amping tricks, the latest vst amp simulator or how to trigger their drumagog samples via wifi from their iPhone….please.
If there’s one thing I love about the Eastern it’s that they believe in themselves and their mission. Any mention of a click track or multi tracking (let alone Auto-Tune) will result in either personal pummeling or a 10 minute lecture as to why they don’t believe in that (now that’s a whole different discussion). Whether I agree with it 100% of the time or not is irrelevant but what I do 100% entirely love is that they stand by their mission and will see it through to the end of the project. This attitude and conviction has an ‘air’ of misfit to it which is not only down to earth and real, but very attractive to work, learn and live with.
The simple fact is: this band is ‘hands down, without a doubt’ New Zealand’s hardest working independent band (I will get into this in the next post). Even though they may not be the best musicians in the country, they are definitely the most passionate and hardworking of all the full time musicians I’ve ever met. They’ve had some of the best studios offer to record them or work with them (most of which are clearly FAR better at this whole game than I am), yet they politely turn these offers down. Why? They simply believe in growing a local community. As they grow stronger, we all grow stronger. Who else is ‘actually’ doing this? I mean, everyone ‘claims’ they’ll do this, ‘claims’ they’ll move away north, or tour the country and spread the word to help the local Christchurch music community….. but….. who is ‘actually’ doing it? The Eastern. And what’s better, who is actually doing it off their own back? Off the smell of the smell of the SMELL of an oily rag? The bloody Eastern.
And who drinks whiskey to keep them going?……lots of whiskey. The God damned Eastern.
