‘What do you mean you haven’t got any salt ‘n’ vinegar chips?’
‘I’ve got some beers – do you want one?’
‘We’ll have to stop at the supermarket … oh and can you pick up some pistachios as well!’
We were only a little bit late … but we can blame that on the ferry! Fortunately there were a couple of supermarkets on the way to Ellamy Studios in Blockhouse Bay so catastrophe was averted.
Having been warmly welcomed by Louis (and Toby their golden retriever), we unpacked our gear and started to setup. ‘What do you want to start with’ – there was no question – ‘Domestic Bliss‘ and, having had one of Ellamy Studios coffees, we got straight into it.
We first set up and played our signature song as we would have live – Larissa in the vocal booth – and Andy outside making all the noise. ‘Nope’, said Louis, ‘ the guitar is way too nice sounding – so we cranked up the Fender amp and added a Tubescreamer. Andy shook his head … realising that he’d let himself get way too soft having taken the easy option of the Digitech multi-fx. It felt good to get back to those not-so-clean analog over-driven tube sounds… that was better. Our old drum loop didn’t last too long either and was rapidly replaced with something a little more up-beat and appropriate.
Once we had the right sounds we were straight into it.
After getting the guitar and vocals down we expanded out our original sound with a high energy bassline and additional guitar parts resulting in a much fuller sound. The initial mix sounds awesome, although we’re going to have to go back and edit out one or two ‘domestic blitch‘s
It was an awesome day of creativity and hard work and we went on to record ‘Wanna Be With You’ and ‘How Many Ways’. We did find that it was quite ambitious day, recording three songs so there’s a little more work to do yet before they’re ready for official release. We’re hoping to be back in the studio sometime before the end of the year.
