In The Studio with David Kershenbaum

Oh how we love the studio, one of our favorite places to be. And it's even better when we get to record our best batch of new songs with the legendary producer David Kershenbaum. It's been two days in the studio now and everything is rolling along as smooth as pie. Our experience in pre-production rehearsals informed us of the inspired, clear vision that David possesses and our time in the studio instantly made us aware of his impeccable ear. The groove is alive in his mind, his ability to immediately recognize the smallest details and quickly edit them is unbelievable.



The studio where we have been working is Matt Sorum's (Guns 'n Roses, Velvet Revolver) Drac Studios in West Hollywood. It's a beautiful spot with a vast assortment of drums, amps, guitars, and all the outboard audio gear you would ever want. Ty was in heaven just oogling at the all the incredible snare drums available, and Mike thoroughly enjoyed the Guns 'n Roses themed pinball machine. A couple of adorable little dogs keep us company too.



All in all, the songs are grooving, thumping, and shining like funky acrobats in suits of polished armor. We cannot wait to share these new tunes with all of you and we'll keep you in the loop.

Pre-Production with David Kershenbaum and Mitch Perry

In the past weeks we have been diligently rehearsing the songs we plan to record this winter under David Kershenbaum’s (Duran Duran, Tracy Chapman, Joe Jackson, Bryan Adams, Supertramp, Cat Stevens) direction. Mitch Perry (Cher, Edgar Winter, MIchael Schenker Group, Deep Purple), David’s right hand man and guitar extraordinaire, has been assisting us with crafting these songs into finely tuned, bastions of fortress 28 North. Every little detail is being intricately analyzed in order to serve the essence of these songs. Reworking, repeating, and reconstructing until nothing else makes them better is our main objective.

Up to this point the focus has been on individual instrument parts and simultaneously the dynamic arc of each song. We began, on Mitch’s insistence, by having the guitar sounds stripped down to their barest form: no pedals, minimum reverb (you can never have no reverb), in general no additives that can potentially “cheesify” (definition below) a song. One by one and little by little, the effects were added which were considered intrinsic to the emotional landscape of the tune. In result, Mike and Taylor have removed much clutter from pedal-world and purified their tones into wailing angels of six-string glory.

Ty and Jon have been approaching drums and bass parts with similar intent. For this the respective instruments are isolated, the drum part being stripped to only the kick and snare drum pattern. After insatiable looping of the parts and cutting and adding we will have the rhythms sealed tight as a drum (pun intended as always should be, or was that just a play on words, I'm not sure). The same applies to the guitar parts, which are given the surgeon’s knife treatment. With each song there have been endless stops and starts and looping and deliberating with David. We absolutely adore working with David and Mitch. They have both contributed to vastly improving our songs already in these early stages and we cannot wait to share these beautiful compositions.



Overall we have probably played these songs approximately a bajillion times in the last month. It is actually quite draining work and we will continue until our songs are ready to present to the world, which won’t be too much longer.

*Cheesify (cheez-uh-fye) - to purposefully or inadvertantly produce something of substandard