Seven Songs In Four Days (7SN4D)

Initially, my plan to record that week was supposed to be from Monday through Friday. I was gonna be alone for Thanksgiving as per usual. It’s really the only time of the year that I actually want to sit down and work stuff out. I toyed with the notion of jumping in and doing a marathon and release it on my B day on the 27th, but it didn’t work out that way.

I hadn’t even touched a guitar since 2015. At that point, I was kinda burned out with metal and rock, in general. Everything since was pretty much ukulele. It was nice to disappear into that realm for several years.

Monday came and I felt it was time to return to the six string world. Had a modest setup in my garage. A little practice amp, a mic and preamp along with a mini mixer. ( This would be my 3rd album using the iRig to iPhone interface.)

I reached into my closet and pulled out an old friend. It was a bit dusty and out of tune, but not for long.

The moment of truth. Everything was ready to go, now just to plug in this mighty axe! And nothing… It seems that my guitar has been out of commission since then. That was a bit disappointing, but I was determined. I put the guitar away and grabbed a bass. Almost instantly and completely, “Rejects “ was born.

That first day was an explosion of riffs and ideas. The following days were just as fluid. I started the later days by watching an episode of the“Get Back” Documentary each day as they premiered. That was pretty inspirational. The narrative of that movie was along the same lines. Coming in with nothing and leaving with a chunk of material. I did have a song in the bank already, but in the end, I decided not to use it. It’s a decent track, I just felt it wouldn’t be authentic if I came in with previous material. So 7 it would be.

A few months into ‘22, I tried to order a beautiful limited edition Stratocaster. The intention being that I never owned one, plus I thought I t would be cool to finish this album with a “Real” guitar. As luck would have it, there were no more in the entire country and are still currently on back order. I probably could’ve settled for a substitute, but
A. My taste is pretty specific and B. If I’m gonna shell out that much money, I better be getting exactly what I want. So I’m still in that line.

The only real instruments on this album is the bass on ,“Rejects “ and “Locusts”. Also the ukulele on “Skin That Smoke Wagon”. The rest are virtual and recorded with my thumbs. I don’t use loops in the sense of “Click and drag”, more like constructing them myself. I did do a bit more layering on the percussion end of things this time around. That was kind of by accident. I figured out how to use the older sounding beat sequencers, (which would’ve worked a hell of a lot better on my last album!). Oh well, I guess you learn something new everyday.

In the end, I am pretty proud of this body of work. There were a few times when it felt like I was merely receiving and interpreting ideas. The main riff on,”Skin that Smoke…” came out of left field, and I almost deleted it. It sounded very country ish and that felt very unnatural. At the end of the day I treated it like it was a movie score. That also made it easier to work in that atmosphere, musically and lyrically. (The lyrics are completely freestyled, and I left it that way).

In my younger days I always hit my quota of 11 tracks, but I feel these compositions reflect a more distinguished and mature gravitas.

All in all, a good run.