PLUMP in the studio Part IV

This is Part IV in the Plump in the Studio installment. For Parts I-III, please scroll down below.

Now that I have described the songs we were set to record, I can get finally get to the part where we actually walk into the studio.

We went into the recording studio on Saturday February 26, 2011, around 10 am. When I say the recording studio, I mean the Bungalow Recording Studio, located at 1441 N. Durham, in the Heights, in Houston. The proprietor and engineer of the Bungalow is, of course, Mr. Mark Shannon, Esquire. Years ago, he bought a house and turned the house into a recording studio. It appears the house used to have 2-3 bedrooms. These "bedrooms" are now comprised of an office, a room for the guitarists and bass players to put their amps (during the recording process), and the room with the giant mixing board, actual recording devices, amps, compressors, speakers, computer screens, chords, etc. etc. etc. (I actually don't know much about this stuff, but I do know there is a lot of it in the Bungalow.) What used to be the garage is now the big room where the band actually plays. There is a big glass so we can see into the engineer's room, and so that Mark can also see us. Of course, the house still has a kitchen. Mark isjust about the nicest guy in the world, with a great attitude and sunny disposition. He always has summer sausages and cheese and crackers and tons of coffee for us in the kitchen. We, in turn, keep his refrigerator stocked with Lone Star tall boys. PLUMP recorded the "Voyage" album and the "I Like the Idea of Chance" album in the Bungalow with Mark, and we were very excited about being in there again. I think the fact that we are recording in a house makes the sessions always feel very relaxed. I always really love being in there, and we have a "more than excellent" rapport with Mark, which makes the whole process easy and lots and lots of fun.

So, we arrived and loaded in. When you go to record, you actually don't really start recording for a couple hours. First, we have to bring in all of our equipment. Next, we have to set up all of the instruments. After the set up, Mark sets up all of the microphones (I think the drums probably had about 10-11 tracks) for the drums, the guitar and bass, saxophone, and different vocals. The set-up for us is that Josh, Al, and I are all in the big room with my drumset and the guitar and bass. The bass amp and guitar amp are in either one of the other rooms, or (for this weekend) in the kitchen. Jason sits in the engineering room with Mark and plays in there. Obviously, we all have headphones so we can hear what everyone is playing and so that (when we are not playing) we can hear what Jason and Mark are saying in the engineer room. Next is the soundcheck to get all the levels right and to make sure we have all the guitar effects sounding good and to make sure there is no extraneous "buzz" coming out of the amps. (No kidding, a couple years ago it took us 2 hours to get rid of a buzz in Al's amp). After all of this, we are finally ready to play.

PLUMP typically starts by playing a jam. On this particular Saturday, we did this really really cool jam we made up on the spot. It is about 12 minutes long, and it has all kinds of neat changes. There are a couple spots where we may have kind of messed up or something, but I really hope we figure out a way to include parts of this on the new album. We did the same thing on the "Chance" album, represented by the first track (I like the idea of chance) and a later track (still liking chance). Next, what we did was play each song three times. We took some breaks and stuff, because this amounts to basically playing about 36 songs, and this process took us probably about 5-6 hours. Because, what we would do is play the songs, then go listen to them, and then play them again, etc. I remember particularly enjoying playing "Gonzo Says" three or maybe four times, and I was really enjoying each and every time we were playing the tune. What is cool for me when in the studio is because we have headphones--the sound is very clear and pure. I can always hear what everyone else is doing better than I can when we are practicing or playing gigs. As such, the songs always take on a slightly different life, and they are really fun to play. This alleviates the stress and bit while we are recording, because at the same time, we know that the end result of this recording is going to be around forever, so there is a bit of pressure to not mess up and to really sound the best we possibly can.

Stay tuned for Part V.