Evolution of a Song :: The Tempest

This is the story of the one that almost got away, but then turned out to be one of the biggest catches of the day. You can blame the bass for this one. (Get it? Bass Guitar? Bass fishing? Huh? Funny, right? No? Moving on.)

So, I play just enough bass guitar to get myself in trouble. I picked up the instrument a few years back because I wanted to try something new and I thought, “Hey… I only have to worry about one note at a time… how hard can it be?” I took one lesson, and off I went. It was Rosy, actually, who sorta taught me how to play bass. About three years ago, Mike, Corey, Rosy, and I were hired to back up some friends of ours on a weekend gig at Hume Lake. This weekend was actually the first time The Dailies band played together, and lead to the making of the first record later that year.

Rosy at one point actually said to me something like… “Watch my kick drum. Don’t play a note unless you see me hitting the kick.” Some of you might be thinking… man… for him to say that… you must have been really bad. You’d be right. However, even though I’m a pretty noob-i-licious bass player, I’m a pretty good musician, and it all worked out. I do U2 style 8th notes quite well, thanks,

Anyways. I actually played bass on the 1st record, which is one of the many reasons why it has a for more garage band feel than this new one. After attempting to play a few gigs, singing and playing and fumbling and mumbling, we decided to hire a pro, our friend Dana Decker.

Playing bass, even though I’ll never be Sting, has lead me to make better choices as a musician, as a songwriter… well… most of the time. More on that in a moment. Even a rudimentary understanding of the instrument helps out. I’ve actually had a couple of bass players comment that it’s more fun to play with me when I’m on keys, because I stay out of their way these days. But I digress…

So we’re working on this song, “The Tempest,” and it all starts with a bass line and a hook idea. It was actually one of the first songs written for the project, which, I think, contributed to the issues we were having later on. It took a little while for the songwriting engine to get cranked up and firing on all cylinders.

So, we write the tune, and I demo it up. The bass line in question happens right at the 0:13 mark, and then loops… endlessly. I want you all to know that this is an exercise in humility for me to share this with you, but it’s a brave new interactive world out there, and here goes nothin’

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Man… that was rough. Glad we made it through there. So, if you’re like me, I hope you heard a lot of potential, but you most likely heard a fair amount of mush and dissonance. We did, too. At this point, as creative people, you start to rationalize with yourself.

“Well… that arrangement doesn’t quite work, but I really like the lyrics and the melody, and it’ll be fine once the band plays it.”

We moved on to other tunes, and other demos, and there you go. By the time we got to Eldorado a few months later, I was moderately dreading this tune. So many of the others, like Signal Chain, had seemed to pour so easily from the pen. Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize, and off we go.

Now, once the band played it, it did sorta come into focus. A bit. On a rock tune, nothing will help it feel better like a real guitar player and a real drummer. However, we were still a bit troubled by it. It just didn’t… feel right, and so many of the others felt great.

Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize… “Well… once the final vocals are in place, it’ll come into focus.”

We finish tracking week, and head home. Again… this tune is at the bottom of our list of favorite tunes, which is really bumming me out, because I had such high hopes for it when we started out. I mean… what a great bass line, right? Can I get a what what? Anyone? Moving on.

One of the big struggles when tracking this one was finding the right keyboard part. Mike is not exactly shy about coming up with great parts, but nothing really settled down. He took a few cracks at it in the studio, then I sat down and did one, and nothing felt right. The Rhodes part that you’ll hear below is actually me, spending WAAAY too much time at home trying to make it fit.

This is a rough mix, coming from our computer, after we had finished tracking the leads. Ok… we can make it through, ok? This story has a happy ending. You really don’t have to listen to the whole thing, unless you’re a HUGE Dailies fan. Or a masochist. For some reason, this particular bounce hit the 2-bus too hard, and all the distortion somehow adds to the fact that the arrangement sucks.

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Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize. “Well… the problems with this song will be resolved once it’s all mixed and pretty.” This actually turned out to be true, but not in the way we thought.

When we finished all the vocal tracking, and were prepping for mix, I wrote up a whole mess of notes and ideas for Stick, our mixer. Keep in mind that Stick is a songwriter, player, producer, and arranger, as well as a mixer. He, like so many of us, wears any musical hat that will keep his kids eating food and the house out of foreclosure. Most of my notes were things like this, “So, on the 1st verse of this tune, I really like the guitar lick at bar 14, so make sure it’s up enough in the mix to hear it.”

On The Tempest, this was my note:

“This is our problem child song. Save this one for a day when you’re feeling like a challenge. Any and all ideas you have will be welcomed. Feel free to employ anything you can think of to give the song more arc.”

So, we clone our drive. FedEx the copy to him, and he goes to work. Now, June (Stick’s wife) told me a story after the mix was completed that went something like this. “Well, Chad, it’s funny… For about three days he was at work in the studio, and he’d come back happy and energized. Then, one night, he came in all downcast. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘Hmmm…. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do with this song.’”

Stick called me the next morning and said…. “How much leeway do I have with tune.” Considering I was on the verge of cutting it from the album, I answered, “How much leeway do you want?”

“Well,” he said, “I think we can keep the Drums, the B3 (organ) and the vocals.” I remember thinking to myself… at least he said we could keep the vocals.

The problem lay in the bass. With all that movement, all that schmutz, there was just nowhere for everyone else to go. Also, the nature of the line I wrote lead everyone else to play like it was some sort of southern fried rock tune, instead of a modern rock anthem. He put together a demo for his idea and sent it to me.

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Aaaaah yes. Everything gets simplified. Everything falls into place. Gone is the bass part that dominates and muddies everything. In it’s place, big guitars and a signature keyboard part. I love this guy! The other major change comes in the chorus. The original version went like this:

G//// G7//// C//// Cm7////

Stickman changed one chord, and the entire character of the thing changes.

G//// Em7//// C//// Cm7////

All of a sudden our little red headed stepchild is getting straight A’s and dating the prom queen. Now the fun begins. All the guitars you heard were Stick hammering away his studio and the bass is a sample, from Spectrasonic’s Trilogy plug-in. Turns out that Corey was going to be in studio the following day, for an unrelated session. Also turns out that they had the whole day booked and only about four hours of work scheduled. Corey, Stick, and I got on the phone and talked through the new parts, and off he went. Dana, excited to get to play a proper bass part, stopped by our place the next day and laid down some stank.

So, after a few more tweaks, and a little more love, here’s a final mix:

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Since this is a big, loud, four chord rock tune, it really benefited from the mastering process.

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So, what’s the moral of this story? Well, it’s simple! Write bad arrangements and then hire a great mixer to fix everything for you! Rationalize those structure issues away! Next song!

So, the actual moral of this songwriting near-miss-almost-disaster is this: I will not be fixed in the mix. A big studio won’t fix it. A great vocal won’t fix it. If your song isn’t working, it isn’t working. Strip it bare and find what’s wrong. Do not get attached. If I’m being perfectly honest, I think this track could have been even stronger still if we had done the extreme makeover earlier in the process.

As it is, we’re pretty grateful that we were able to not only keep it in the mix, but that it turned out to be one of our favorites. We were affirmed in that feeling a few weeks ago, when Crucial Music selected it as one of six of our tunes that will be added to their library.

If this tune goes platinum, I’ll have to do something really nice for Stick, like get him a monogrammed pen or a gift card to Starbucks or something. We know how to take care of our people, ya’ll.