First post on my new website, and it is about a band from my past.

I used to play with these guys in Indianapolis. I left the band in 2008, and watched them flourish as writers. I had always hoped I would get the nod to help make their official release, and here we are.

They do a unique blend of what I consider heavy Botch influence, Converge influence, and a dash of Deftones and Poison the Well thrown in. Its a very solid and tight drum-bass-guitar combination, and vocalist, a dear friend, Joseph Gaylor writes tremendous lyrics. They are a fantastic hardcore band, and I am very excited about the project.

Joel Lauver engineered and co-produced the session in Nashville, where we worked on the guitar and the bass. Very straightforward tones and approach to tracking. We used an excellent mic selection to attain the truest tone from the amplifiers themselves. Tim Hall, who masters records in Nashville at Nashville Record Productions was the overall godsend/assistant on the session. He knows the room and the board and outboard gear better than any of us, and rolled with all the ups and downs with us all weekend.

Wesley Deboy, created the drum sound. He tracked the bands drummer, Derreck, in his room back in Indianapolis, and with great results. I knew we were going for a very honest, and almost “live” sound.

The band made it clear they didn’t want to spend hours with obscene overdubs and stacks of guitar and ambience. in essence, they wanted to have the best and loudest/clearest representation of the way they might sound in a basement or at a tiny hardcore show. Total honesty.

We used a variety of quality microphones to achieve the sounds we ended up chasing on guitars and bass. Royer 121, Senheiser MD421, Cascade Fathead II and of course, Shure sm57. The console used was an SSL Duality.

The guitar tone was achieved using Dyllens’ Marshall Triple Super Lead head, a 4×12 Orange Cabinet (the best) and a Marshall 2×12 classic cab. We split the signal between the two cabs, and used different mic combinations and techniques on each cab for a wider tonal palette. Combining the close-mic, in your face sounds from the 57, and some of the warmer and creamier sounds achieved using the ribbon mics give the guitars a very deep and gnarly rip to them. Dyllen doesn’t riff with a ton of gain, and uses the massive amount of headroom in the TSL to his advantage. It’s a very rock and roll tone, in a very dark tuning and playing style. Super unique.

Bass guitar split the signal between the bassists two live cabs, his Ampeg SVT3, and a DI signal processed with a vintage Sans-Amp once owned by Mike Murphy of Haste the Day. Caleb, the bassist, also had a unique boutique overdrive pedal that was used on his entire live-cab signal. Very crushing tone.

Excited to finish the vocals and mix this recording. I love doing hardcore records, and I have learned from one of the best in the business. I may not play, or even listen to a ton of hardcore in my day to day, but I truly enjoy the creation of the music itself. There is something completely unique and skillful about working in that environment.

Regardless; good players, good gear, good songs, good mics and a good group of producer/engineer/assistance and you can make a great record.

You can access the demos here.

Eli