I (Chad) was out on a week long tour with a High School aged choir that I conduct, a holdover from my former life. It was a great week. We sing in places like Juvenile Detention Centers, Drug and Alcohol Rehab Centers, and Homeless Shelters, so it’s the kind of week that can spin everyone’s head around straight. It’s so easy to get caught up in one’s own drama, but next time that happens, go down to the mission for a Friday evening dinner and chapel service, and you’ll get your wits back in a hurry.

We had to make a tough choice this year. See, usually Erica goes on the trip with me, even singing in the choir in years when I needed a strong female voice on stage. We have two young kids, Ella and Zion. Have I mentioned that here? Well, we do. Ella-Bee and Zee-Boy go to their grandparent’s house in San Diego for a week such as this. That’s where they were the week we were all at Eldorado.

Since the Eldo week, we’ve completed what I’d estimate to be about 30% of the vocals for the record. Why is it taking so long, is it because we suck? No… quite the opposite. We’re both really quite good singers, with a lot of professional experience in a wide variety of musical genres. We have a very wide palate of tones available to us, and we have to find the right one for each song. This takes time, and focus.

So, during the day, I work in here. It’s taken several hours to sift through the 100+ gigs of audio we recorded that week, and get our tracks prepped for vocals. Erica teaches voice students to pay some of the bills, so she works in the afternoons during the week. Everyone gets together at the end of the day for dinner, maybe a bath, stories, teeth brushing, goodnight kisses, goodnight prayers and so on.

Next thing we know… it’s 10pm, and we’re beat. The conversation always goes like this:

“We need to track.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Me too.”
Both: “Bummer.”

Sometimes we muster the energy, sometimes we can’t. We work in the margins. An hour here, two hours there.

Our tough decision was asking ourselves the question, “Does it make sense to spend a week’s worth of childcare on a choir trip that has nothing to do with The Dailies.” The answer, was no. So, Erica stayed home and played single mommy for a week. Adding insult to injury, her birthday fell right in the middle.

The payoff is this: Starting July 11th, we will have an entire week devoted to the completion of this record. We want to finish every last bit of recording and go to mix by August. We’ll be posting like mad that week, letting you all in on every aspect of our process that we can. We’ll shoot some more video, post some audio, and maybe even figure out how to stream from the webcam.

We’re pretty stoked. If you’re a praying type, send one up for us that week. We need for our voices to be strong, ready to give 100% for 10 hours a day, 7 days straight.

Stay tuned here, because yesterday I miced up a toy piano for a little overdub on one of the tunes, and shot some funny video of me sitting on the floor, tinkering like a toddler.

Later!

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It’s a sad and sweet little ditty. It’s a song about wanting to be let go, but not wanting to hurt the other person, or in this case… people. There are plenty of harsh and angry goodbye songs. This one is something different. It’s a song about giving love and asking to be set free with a blessing. You can hear a snippet of it on the video we uploaded last week.

So, anyways.. we’re in the studio working on this tune, and Mike goes, “Can I have 15 minutes to do a little science project?” Sure… what’s 15 minutes?

So, Mike tell Chris, the engineer… “I’m gonna need like 16 passes on the piano for this, but only for… oh I dunno, 12 bars.” Now, for our record, there’s a 3 mic setup on the piano. Two vintage AKG C12s on the hammers and our 251 mic as a mono “Indie-LoFi” option. 16 x 3 is… well, I’m not a math guy. It’s several channels.

So, Chris goes about creating enough tracks so Mike can exercise whatever muse is tickling his creative nerve. A few moments pass, and Chris says he’s ready.

So… Mike goes in, and creates… this. I have no idea how he did what he did. Some of it is plucked, some straight playing. I think some of it was him scraping his fingernails on certain strings. Some of it sounds like he just banged his fist on an eighty year old Steinway. All we knew was that Chris would hit record, Mike would play one of the elements you’ll soon hear, and then he’d stop, and say… “Ok… next pass.” Nothing was redone. Everything you’ll hear below was created with a piano, believe it or not.

Suddenly, our record had grown by an additional track. See, I want to let this thing just unspool for about 2 minutes before we even start the tune. We have a rough idea of the song order, and I can tell you that, at least as of now, this is going to be a bridge from a couple tunes in a row about emotional and relational conflict into the song Kiss Us Goodbye, which is a song about resolution. There’s something about this improvised piece that completely captures the sense of sadness and longing that I felt when I wrote the song.

Today, I got around to opening this file, and began the preparation for vocal tracking. I began to take the science project apart and rebuild it. He intended it to be pieces of a puzzle, to be refit together at a later date. This will not be the final mix, or even the final edit. This is what I created today from the pieces he gave me. Today, you’ll hear the Science project, interpreted by yours truly, and then you’ll hear it transition into the real song, and then it ends… rather abruptly… sorry. I created this little MP3 to share with Mike, and then I decided to share it with you. By the time the record is complete, it may become something totally different. Who knows? It’s art, baby!

This is the art that was created today. I’m thinking about naming this science project Prelude to a Kiss, in honor of the song into which it leads.

I feel like this record is going to be something special. I really hope you’re enjoying what you’re hearing thus far.

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Today I opened up the Pro Tools file for “All In,” for the first time since we’d left the studio. I had bad memories of this song from Eldorado. Some tunes just go down without a hitch. Some tunes are band songs through and through. Everyone knows their part, everyone plays it down. Feels great, sounds great, next song!

All In, if you think about it, is a pop tune masquerading as some sort of Southern Fried Swaggering Rock Anthem. It’s supposed to be fun, it’s not supposed to cure cancer. It’s the kind of tune that will work great with a band in a live context, but requires some additional poppy sauce to get it to sit in the right place on tape.

So, instead of one perfect guitar part, I have six that need to be put together. This is one of the places where having a studio on lockout for two months comes in handy, as you (and the guitar player) sit and just try any and all tones and see which ones jigsaw together the best.

When you have six days for the whole record… you sit there and yell every idea you’ve had on a particular tune, and blow through them. You know the parts are cool, but after a few minutes, it all turns to soup. It takes time, patience, editing, good EQ, good choices, and a producer’s ear to stitch it all together. We didn’t do that at Eldo.

So, the memory I have of this song from tracking week was that there was a lot of cool stuff, but that it wasn’t ready to all hang together yet.

So, the weeks pass, and we pick off songs to open up and track vocals on. Feel Good. Yes. That one went down easy. She Goes…. went like buttah. Two Years Ago… sticky funk, let’s do that. All In… let’s save that for another day. Today was that day. I opened up the two biggest challenges of the album, this tune, and one you guys haven’t heard yet. Sure enough.. they were soup.

However, I’m quite pleased to tell you that with a little love and elbow grease, and some EQ and a couple of carefully selected sections muted, both songs are starting to come together quite nicely, and we haven’t even gone in with the scalpel to clean up little things that fuzzy up the picture.

I’m enjoying listening to these tracks again. I can’t wait to sing on them.

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That seems a little counterproductive, doncha think? I mean… you’re in the business of making fans and playing shows, right? Doesn’t it help if you, you know, invite people to come hear you?

Well… technically, yes.

Tuesday afternoon, our friend Ash called. Aly and Ash are good, longtime friends, and quite creative, both on their own and as a couple. Ash sings with a band of talented lads called Give Away Your Hearts.

He told me that they were playing a show this upcoming Sunday in Ventura, and he wanted to know if we wanted to come open for them. Turns out we couldn’t make it in time to open for them due to another commitment, and because Ash is just cool like this, he goes, “Fine… we’ll open for you then.”

Now, Erica and I have been approaching the live thing with fear and trembling, I can’t lie. All ya’ll know that when Mike, Dana, Rosy, and Corey join us, the rafters shake and the house is rocked. However, and this has been an ongoing problem for us, is that these guys are busy professionals, and play they music for a living. It’s not a hobby… that’s why we like them.

However, coordinating schedules and making sure we have a big enough venue to justify paying for their time has proven difficult. When you’re an unknown indie, you can’t be sure that a hundred people are gonna show up, and enough of them are going to buy your CD for you to afford to pay the band and break even. We realized pretty quickly that it was simply not economically viable to take the band wherever we went as we were building a following. When the full Dailies band plays together, there are nine children represented between the four families. Kids gotta eat!

So, when we were writing this second record, we asked ourselves over and over again, “Can we play this song with our without the band?” See, Erica and I are singers, first and foremost. We both play piano, however, nothing screams NOT INDIE ROCK like two piano players in a band, in my ever so humble opinion. Maybe two french horn players, but that’s about it.

So, Erica took it upon herself to learn guitar, and I started playing bass, in fact some of you remember that I actually played bass on “What it Is.” You’ll also notice that I hired a pro for the second record, so you can imagine how I felt about my own performance. The bottom line is that we’re not great instrumentalists. We have devoted most of our musical energy and time over the years to develop our singing ability.

We’ve started finding places to play, with just the two of us. We played a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, totally unamplified. We played a mom’s group at a local church (don’t ask.) Today, we played a bar.

We didn’t invite you, or even tell anyone, because we’re finding our way. We’re not ready to sound the alarm, and invite the world to see what we’ve prepared. We need to play a few more gigs under the radar and figure out who we are as artists separate from the band.

Oh, be assured, the band will play, and they will bring the thunder. But sometimes, they won’t, and we must be ready. Today we played for a handful of people, only a few of whom had any remote investment in us personally.

But it still worked. It was rough, but it worked. We held them in our little musical bubble. We played for maybe two dozen people in Ventura in the middle of the afternoon, but I will go to sleep tonight feeling like we took a major step towards the future.

Aly shot some video. I look forward to editing together a few snippets to share with you all.

We promise to invite you to the actual gig next time.

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After we both finish our leads, we’ll go back and listen to all the songs for a week, and develop in our minds what we think the harmony or layered parts might be. Is it a straight harmony thing? We decided long ago that the sound of The Dailies is the two of us singing together. We are reluctant to get into a situation where there are audibly “Chad” songs, or “Erica” songs. Our sound is us, both of us, singing together.

However, we like to be a little more creative than just simply picking a melody, and then one of us singing it, and then the other just singing the 3rd or 6th and just calling it a day.

On some of the songs, we’re trying to develop counter melodies for one another. For example, on Signal Chain, my part is the melody. Erica’s vocal basically chases the melody word for word, but not note for note. Sometimes she zigs when I zag. I have listened many times to the song (in the computer) with my part muted and Erica’s part alone. I think it’s almost as good of an alternate melody as my part, which is the actual melody.

We think it’s a more interesting sound then just a straight harmony part.

It’s funny. I think that most non-musical people think that good music just sort of happens, just sort of appears out of the mist like Brigadoon. The truth is, at least for us, that music happens as a result of careful planning and execution, built upon years of training and discipline.

The great challenge is to preserve the original intent of the piece. There are so many ways it can go sideways, or lose it’s way. In many ways, that what the song Signal Chain is all about.

So, we construct. First a lead, then a 2nd part. Then we listen. Is it asking for anything else? If so, what? Where?

Eventually, you listen through a piece, and your ear tells you it’s done. It’s the when… that’s the issue.

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When we recorded “What it Is,” it was the first time either of us had shepherded a band-centric project to completion. I played in a band in college, but I wasn’t responsible for producing the record. Erica and I had worked with some friends to produce a demo EP for one of Erica’s students a few years back, but it was production by committee, with all the benefits and foibles that come with such a proposition. We had made a full length recording with some friends of ours a few years back, but it was all programmed tracks, where I (literally) had a hand in placing every single note on the record.

So the recording process two years ago was our first attempt at getting something out of players, onto tape, that we could be excited about, and this was no practice attempt. Now, it’s important to understand that there are many ways and moments where a recording project can go off the rails, especially when you’re on a budget and going like lightning. Even great players (and man do we have great players) can hear something different than you (the songwriter) intended. So, we made extensive demos of the entire first record.

When I say extensive demos, I mean just that. Fully sequenced, with fake guitar parts, fake bass parts, fully developed ear candy and synth parts, and… final vocals. That’s right… What it Is was tracked, band-wise, to the vocals that we now hear on the finished product. Our theory was that if the guys were hearing the real deal in their headphones while they laid it down, then they’d be less likely to take us off the rails.

We were naive. Sue us.

There were some positive outcomes of this, but more negative ones. For instance, since I am not a guitar player, I’d play sample based guitar parts that no real guitar player would actually develop. So, Corey and I would go back and forth trying to “copy” the demo. This is a huge waste of time and talent. Corey is an outstanding guitar player, that’s why we hire him. He is supposed to be able to come up with something cooler on guitar then I can. Same with Rosy on drums, and Mike on keys.

The other really negative thing that emerged from the “pre-tracked final vocals” plan was this: sometimes the band takes it to 11, but the vocals only went to 7-8. The worst case of this, in my opinion, is on the song “Wake Us.” The final ramp up, after the bridge, the band just tears the roof off. Now, Erica and I can go there, we really can. Both of us have powerful instruments, capable of matching energy with any and all comers.

However, since we tracked our vocals to samples, on the demo, the vocals don’t quite rise to the challenge. Sure, Stick and I tweaked it in the mix so that they stay out front, and that song is still my favorite from the first record, but I will tell you right now that if you’ve ever hear Erica do that last bit live, you know that there’s a bigger ending out there. She just destroys it.

So, this time, trying to learn our lesson, two major things changed:

1. The demos (some of which you’ve heard on this site) are far more stripped down. I tried to leave room for the boys to do what it is they do, and in nearly every instance, they took what we had built as songwriters and just catapulted it into the next atmosphere. There is grease and funk and sickness all over this record that I just love. They guys commented to me over and over, that it was easier to learn this record, and still feel like they had room to make it their own. This made me feel good, and I think the whole project is already on a different level than “What it Is.”

2. We’re tracking our vocals after the fact, hence the title of this post. Initially, this lead to a pretty significant emotional letdown the week after Eldorado. Two years ago, after the band did it’s thing, we were basically done. Mix, master, and serve. We had a nearly instantaneous gratification after the ecstasy of tracking week. This time, we emerged back into our regular lives (nothing like wiping a 2 year old’s poopy bottom to keep it real, right?) knowing that we had another massive mountain to climb.

So, this summer, we sing. We look for an hour here, two hours there. We put the kids to bed, and do our best to summon the energy to bring some heat. It’s not sexy. It’s hard work. Here at our house, the air conditioning compressors are right outside the wall of the studio. If they’re on, you can hear an audible hum on the vocal tracks. So, we sweat, and sing. We’ve toyed with the idea of turning on the webcam while we’re tracking, to invite you all into the process, but the reality is that sometimes we’re half nekkid from the heat.

We’re not THAT kind of band.

I’ve tracked my vocals on Two Years Ago, and She Goes. Erica’s laid down an amazing lead on Love Brought You Here. We’ve both gotten to the bridge on Signal Chain. We chip away, an hour here, an hour there.

These are our dailies.

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The story is this: I’ve known my friend Zack for the better part of 15 years. He’s a great lover of music, and despite what he will tell you, a pretty darn solid pop/folk/rock guitar player. Zack has earned his living in many terribly interesting ways over the years. He was a beta-tester for a video game company. He worked at a polling firm in NYC. He shot and edited video for the live “Fear Factor” show at Universal Studios. He’s an all around cool cat.

Anyways, he shot something like 8 hours of footage the week we were at Eldorado, and these 4 vids were him just throwing things together the morning after, hence the commentary about the dentist and whatnot.

Check out his website at www.frequentflyerproductions.com

We’re going to be putting together a longer, more comprehensive piece on The Dailies, encompassing not only the time at Eldo, but what we’re doing now (tracking vocals at home) and what will happen in the future (artwork, publicity, and Lord willing, touring).

Enjoy!

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