Fantastic first day at Sound Emporium yesterday!

First days can be weird. For example, we’ve never worked with Jamie Lidell: will his brand of eccentricity play nice with ours? The engineers are veterans of modern country sessions: will their surviver mode professional detachment harsh the mellow? First days are normally spent breaking the ice, getting sounds and hanging out. Us? We show up, stock the fridge with cheap domestic lager and kinda just start recording.

The way we’re making this record’s so exciting. No click track. No headphones, even. Just us, set up in a circle, recording live. Any musician knows this makes the process about as difficult as it gets, theoretically. But it’s so much fun- total garage band vibes- and an inspiring vote of confidence from Jamie Lidell: look, you guys are great. Just play.

When you see a band (at least a good one, anyway) that’s been together for a loooooong time, you notice shared smiles, glances that hint at inside jokes, and neat synchronous sparks that only happen when you know a person’s playing better than your own. It’s those little things that leave you feeling lifted. I can’t tell you how many times someone’s come up to me after a show and said “wow, that was great, I love how much fun you guys have up there!” I’m so happy we’re finally, FINALLY capturing that on record. We’re just set up in a circle, making music, being pals.

Ok, back to work...