As you may have seen on our social media, David, Natalie, Casey and I spent last Friday night and most of Saturday holed up with Chris Isaac (not that one) at his home studio, Studio 82. We brought in 11 new songs and a specific approach to the sessions. For one, we wanted to see if we could get “basic tracks” on all 11 songs during the same weekend. Basic tracks nearly always include drums (most importantly because you can't really “overdub” the drums, or at least not easily), but often include bass and drums to lay the foundation for any additional overdubs. In our case, the goal was to get bass, drums, Natalie's piano, my acoustic guitar, and my lead vocals with the thought that we would keep all of those for the base of the album. It's unusual in modern recording to keep the vocals from the basic tracking and is more typical to re-record the lead vocal later, but we want this album to have a laid back, lived-in, more home-spun feel to it and wanted the vocals to be embedded with the actual recording of the instruments. After planning to set up on Friday night and record from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Saturday and then come back on Sunday afternoon, we were able to finish the basic tracks on all 11 songs by late Saturday afternoon. Also unusually, but thanks to Chris' efficient recording process, we left the studio Saturday afternoon with rough mixes of all the songs. We're thrilled with the performances and the sounds that Chris captured, and we will return to the studio next weekend to put down Amy and Natalie's back-up vocals, and hopefully some electric guitars. 

Here are a few pics from the studio including some that prove my normal decision to not mix short pants and rock and roll is a good one for me…