A couple words about how we made this record.

I didn’t make this record. “We” made this record. The we in question is a pretty long list of people who were kind enough to lend their talents and do it really just for the fun of it.

Here’s what happened. I had a few old songs and a couple new ones. I was planning on recording something “live in the garage” or something like that. However, the idea of remote recording was floating around because of everyone quarantining, so I decided to give it a shot.

I had very little fancy gear at home, but I had enough to get a passable acoustic guitar and vocal sound. So, with that in mind, I recorded acoustic guitar and vocal and sent those files off to Scott Seiver. Scott was kind enough to play the drums and also played the role of producer. Producing on this project pretty much meant getting the files to and from people. I was really committed to not guiding people in their performances too much. “Send the files off and hope for the best” was the approach. For the most part we stuck to it.

Jon Button and Dan Rothchild are two amazing bassists, and I'm lucky enough to be friends with them, so they took care of the bass duties and did an amazing job. Once that was done, we started sending mp3s of the vocal, acoustic, drums and bass to the keyboard players.

It’s weird to me that until I moved to LA the idea of recording with a B3 wasn’t even on my radar. When I was calling my friends to play keys on this record, all four of them had B3s at home to record with. Jordan Summers plays some lovely organ and a proggy arpeggiated thing that makes me giggle every time I hear it. Mike Bluestein took my direction of “can we do something that sounds like I Got You by Split Enz” and just killed it. Rami Jaffe reminded me why I love playing with him and how much I miss it. Unfortunately that damn Dave Grohl keeps him busy most of the time. And finally, Chris Joyner, who altered the course of the last album, comes through like I knew he would.

The guitars were done by a gang of people. Geoff Pearlman, Brett Farkas, Emeen Zarookian, Bob Riley, and Danny DelaMatyr. They’re all guys that I have loved playing with, so I was confident that they’d do something cool and they all did.

In the midst of all this, Scott kept track of who did what and kept the balls in the air. I am very grateful that he did. The recording process would have been kind of a mess if I had to keep track of all that stuff. Finally, John Spiker put the finishing touches on it by doing a stellar job of mixing and mastering. He’s just the best.

So, here's our offering in the midst of these weird times. Since we can't go out and see music, we should at least be making new music for people to enjoy.

Enjoy.
Zak Schaffer
May 2020