Long day yesterday. Good, very productive, but long. How many tunes are in the bag now? Seven? Nine?

The thing about recording without a click track and headphones is every take counts. It’s not a case of ok, we’re focusing on bass and drums, so I’m going to find parts and fine tune until it’s time for overdubs. How we’re working is a unique balance of ultimate chill and crazy pressure.

We’re recording everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, and I want to sound good every take because when Jason’s crushing and Swatty’s channeling Mr. Wonder and Tyler’s grooving like a so-and-so and Allen’s embodying Dio and Al Greene with a crazy, sexy, vaguely unsettling kinda mojo, I don’t want to be the assclown who keeps missing the G chord. And we’re playing the equivalent of maybe five or six shows in a row (with pizza breaks). So, yeah.

But it’s inspiring. Yesterday, we reworked a demo that needed LOTS of love into this gnarly Black Keys/disco vibe which is so unsettlingly cool I want to dance and shoegaze simultaneously. Jamie Lidell’s got my guitar sounding like a chain smoking buzzsaw. This record’s new, which is exactly what we need. Sure, the songs are new, but more so the whole approach is the opposite of what’s become our normal.

We've been smelling each other's feet for a bunch of years now. These sessions are just the kick in the ass we need.