It Comes Out Like Easy Cheese Supermega
"We had kind of a 'coming to Jesus' moment a little while ago," The Cord Cheese Incident's Michael Kang explains. "Now that we're into version two.0 of our reality—and everybody lives in different places—nosotros decided that information technology was of import for us to begin a yearly tradition where we would assemble and not do any rehearsals for tours or annihilation, but merely work out new ideas—attempt to get into a band creative procedure, away from families and stuff similar that.
"So, a couple years ago, we did a band retreat where we went to this business firm in Sedona, Ariz., totally out in the middle of nowhere, and simply loaded our stuff into it—it was merely the six of us with our road manager, and nosotros prepare. In that location was nada construction to it: Nosotros but got up in the morning, cooked breakfast together, so went, 'Alright let's play some music.' Nosotros'd play for a couple hours and we'd be like, 'Oh, it's nice out! Permit's go for a hike!' Then there were breakout sessions when people would piece of work on lyrics together. We recorded the whole thing and 10 to 15 potential new tracks came out of that five-day experience together. That proved to be the lightning of the flame for the new fabric that'southward being put out on Believe. We've since done that once more at our friend's place outside of Aspen, Colo., and that will probably turn into the next release."
"To be honest," Kyle Hollingsworth adds "[Michael] Travis and I were a niggling hesitant at first considering we were like, 'How's this going to work? We haven't actually gotten together every bit a group and lived together.' I was nervous because some people write differently, and I didn't know how well I would write in a grouping, simply it turned out to be a fantastic experience. Past the time we left, we totally understood what it was about. Writing together, cooking together, hiking together—it was similar a ring retreat."
The Material from those Sedona Sessions comprises the bulk of the songs on Believe, the grouping'due south new studio release and the follow-up to their 2014 anthology, Song in My Head. As on that record, Jerry Harrison Served as producer alongside engineer Eric "ET" Thorngren.
"Nosotros had developed this rapport that seemed to piece of work," Kang explains. "So, for this album, we also actually wanted to give Jerry a shot to produce songs that weren't written because, on the concluding anthology, the songs were already pretty much established. He didn't actually take equally much producer input per se, also how it sounded overall. So we merely wanted to go further along the process with him."
Believe
MK: The chorus for this song had been going through my head for a while. I don't know where it came from, merely it might have happened after I saw a U2 stadium testify a few years agone. I had never seen them before in that kind of setting and it blew me abroad. Soon after that, I had this lyric and melody going through my caput.
I oasis't had a lot of time to exist creative at home lately because I have 2 kids. When I get home, I'thou changing diapers and everything'southward got to be serenity at my house during that time. Simply when we did the band retreat, the songs came together really quickly. We started working on lyrical concepts in the studio, but the chorus was always right at that place. The basic concept is that a lot of u.s.a., in whatever walk of life, sit down there looking for happiness just, while we're looking, we can miss the fact that it'southward just staring usa correct in the confront.
KH: This was one of the first songs nosotros brought out at the very beginning of our writing sessions in Sedona. It felt like it was to have off right from the outset notation. It's a great opening runway. It really grabs your attending and all the background vocals definitely add a fiddling fleck of a U2-ish vibe.
Sweet Spot
MK: "Sugariness Spot" is another i of the songs that came out of our fourth dimension in Sedona. Keith [Moseley] had the basic riff and stuff worked out already. He tends to write the hookiest stuff for our ring, and he has a actually expert pop sensibility. It was simply fun to piece of work on that song. I call back them sitting effectually working on lyrics, and he simply ran with that one. It was another one of those things that pretty much wrote itself. It'due south become a mainstay in our whole live repertoire now.
One of the things that'south been fun in the studio, and a lot of our live shows the last couple years, has been getting to work with great vocalists. We got to bring in this woman, Sheryl Renee, a friend of ours in Boulder who's a badass soul, gospel singer. I remember existence in the studio and having her sing background, and we were sitting at that place going, "Yeah!" with the pilus on our artillery standing upward. When you get somebody who knows how to utilise their vocal pipes, information technology'due south a next-level kind of affair. That was a really fun studio moment.
KH: I can often hear in Keith'south lyric writing what he listens to at home. I might come in and say, "I'k listening to Vulfpeck" or something, and he'll say, "I accept the land station on all the time and everything I'm writing comes from state songs." It's interesting to me because that's not at all what I'chiliad listening to. The band is definitely very diverse.
My One and Only
KH: I'd worked with Bonnie [Paine of Elephant Revival] in the past. She played on a couple of tracks on my final solo disc. I dear her vocalisation. I remember information technology's then unique and I wanted to showcase her vocals. When I got together with her, I didn't really take the lyrics done. Then I striking her up and she was like, "Sure I'll help you lot write lyrics as well." So we got together, and she came up with the chorus and I started working on some of the verses. We talked nigh existence on the road a lot and missing our loved ones back home. Then nosotros worked out the melodies and went through it together, and she improvised the whole last half of the vocal. I knew that I wanted her to practice a vocal on that track. Information technology could have been merely me being lead vocal, but nosotros mixed information technology in a mode where she's very prominent. She has a unique voice only also requires a unique way to tape it because she's very soft-spoken. Yous really have to be quiet. No one can be talking in the entire edifice or non buildings over. [Laughs.] And so, she'll sing it really quietly and go, "Is that it? Did yous get it?" "OK, nosotros got it. OK, proficient, now people tin can go to the bathroom or do whatsoever they want."
MK: I remember we were watching Mumford & Sons at Bonnaroo, that year [2011] when they really blew upwards, before they became super mega with that showtime anthology. And we're sitting there going, "My lord, look at what has happened! It took a bunch of English folks playing bluegrass to blow it up to the next level!" Then that left a big impression on the states, like, "Wow, we have similar acoustic sensibilities." I think, lyrically, Kyle is in the same gunkhole as me with two immature kids. A lot of his songs have been about relationships, his kids and other stuff that's been going on. But we really also wanted to bring the vibe of that human foot-stomping, Mumford-blazon thing at the cease of it.
Downward a River
MK: "Down a River" is something that Baton [Nershi] actually had written a long time ago and had already put out. [It appears on his 2001 album with Liza Oxnard, It's About Time.] He played it for u.s. a long, long fourth dimension ago and we thought it was a great song but, at the time, Cheese was interested in existence more of a dance band. So it's one of those tracks where we thought, "OK, information technology'due south not bad, but we've opted to work on more than up-tempo, dance-fashion numbers."
But nosotros're now at this point where nosotros feel like we're willing to record anything and let it but be the character of the song. It was really fun to get into this one in the studio. One album that actually afflicted all of the states was Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball, and specially Daniel Lanois' big, lush treatment of these country-based songs. I remember that influenced some of these songs, how they were produced and how we wanted them to sound. This ane came off really easy. A couple takes in the studio, and we were off and running.
KH: Nosotros were all request for more songs, and Billy was like, "I accept this one here." Right away, Jerry really gravitated toward that. He thought information technology sounded like The Band, in a very low-central way, like from Big Pink. And so we tracked the whole thing with the thought of it existence a Band song.
Go Tight
MK: " Get Tight" was another i of those things that we came up with in Sedona. It was funny: Before it really had lyrics, the vibe of it was heading more in the direction of a G. Beloved song, with some rap vocals and a mid-tempo funk beat. Only and so, Keith was like, "No, I actually, really want to try it more like a full-on state thing." Keith wanted to bring in Tyler [ Grant] and take somebody who could really slay it on the Telecaster, every bit this beautiful country thing.
So, although when we first started recording, I was like, "Oh, we're gonna do this G. Honey matter," when we decided to become more land with information technology, it was off to the races in that direction. We've always been joking with Keith that he should try to sell a bunch of his songs to these songwriters in Nashville, and this was our ode to that: just total-on, entire country guitar. But, at the aforementioned time, the underpinnings of the song are completely different.
KH: Keith is my favorite vocalist in the band, and his lyrics e'er make sense. My lyrics are like, "Oh, I kind of sympathize that line and that made sense, and then y'all've lost me near halfway through." Keith has a storyline to his writing, then I actually appreciate not just his vocals, but his lyrics.
Stop Drop Roll
KH: This was a lightheaded song that I wrote with Jason [Hann]. It was written as a party song in the summer. Ane of the interesting parts of it was my collaboration with Jason, but I merely envisioned playing information technology for a few months. We recorded it for the fun of it and then we decided that we needed that vibe on the album.
It started out as a fiddling riff that I had been playing in my solo band, and I got the whole audience to do it. I was like, "That's kind of hooky." So I said, "How nearly this?" And we developed the entire vocal from that ane little intro riff. Jason has been excited to be more involved in the songwriting process and he latched onto information technology. He put some drum beats to information technology and he helped write the lyrics.
"Terminate Drop Ringlet" is one of the songs that we've been playing live for a little while. People in the band have different ideas nigh whether to play these songs before the album comes out. Information technology doesn't matter to me personally what the order is. I just like getting music out. In our case, information technology came downwards to figuring out what songs made sense to play alive, and songs like "Stop Drib Roll" or "Get Tight" or "Believe" will go played more live because they might fit a setlist better than "My One and But" or "Down a River."
MK: "Terminate Driblet Roll" was one of the songs that actually made it into our alive repertoire. We wanted to include a couple songs that were part of the already established String Cheese playbook. I think this vocal came most right afterward "Uptown Funk" came out, and nosotros were just sitting there in a different rehearsal space one time simply going, "What if we wrote a super funny, cheesy kind of trip the light fantastic tune?" And Kyle and Jason just ran with it. We were in the middle of rehearsal and they we just sitting there coming upwardly with these parts, and then it might have been loosely inspired from that. It was this fun, playful thing that developed into a real vocal over a rehearsal, and we but kept working with it. But it was fun to just be able to become into the studio and produce information technology, and get it into a form that was more produced and sonically wide. That was another one that came off pretty easy because we had, more than or less, done all the legwork.
Flight
MK: One of the things we wanted to do on the album was produce big, lush, ballads in the Pinkish Floyd vein. This one, we started working on during the sessions in Sedona. I call up we had this workshopping session with the lyrics and it was our ode to our favorite big Pink Floyd-style tracks. We used a lot of tremolo guitars and big, spacious reverb.
Nosotros were working on that one live the other day, just trying to go it set up to play live. We haven't really done it that much alive. But the idea of beingness able to practice a lot of vocal layering and make stuff sound really big without having to play the parts was something nosotros wanted to establish with this vocal.
It'south fun in the studio to be able to come with song parts. Sometimes, alive, nosotros're limited past how many people are there singing and able to sing while they're playing. Then this was one of those songs where we were like, "Nosotros can do whatever we desire vocally, just record it and learn how to figure out how to do information technology alive." We're in that procedure right now. We're hoping to be able to get to that point where nosotros can make it audio only as adept live.
At this point, nosotros're OK with the thought of putting out stuff that sounds slap-up on the record and, if we can't reproduce it live, and then we'll keep working on information technology. We don't feel like nosotros're restricted past needing to accept everything that we do be available to our alive repertoire. Then we'll see how it goes.
So Much Fun
KH: "Then Much Fun" was written for another projection [Kyle Hollingsworth Band]. But I played it for Cord Cheese and they were similar, "Oh that's cool! Let's do it!" I was like, "Nosotros don't have to. It'due south not very 'String Cheese.'" But they were like, "No, allow's definitely do it!"
I had been listening to Ben Folds 5 a lot. Theres a alive album that came out ii or iii years ago and this was written like a Ben Folds Five tune, with sort of a heavy, punk piano. One nighttime, my daughter walked out of the car, looked up at the moon and she saw the clouds were covering it. She was like, "They're playing hide and seek with the moon!" And I was like, "Hide and seek with the moon? That'southward a bang-up lyric line!" So I grabbed information technology. From at that place, I was thinking, "Let'south go super psychedelic. Permit's go Beatles." I was thinking the lyrics could exist about riding clouds through the afternoon or chasing planets around the room. The whole thing turned into this playful, psychedelic chorus.
Then Jerry put his caput deep in this ane. He wanted the whole vocal to be a conversation between a girl and a father. The pre-chorus is "Every fourth dimension I autumn into your gaze of blue"—because she has actually beautiful blueish optics—"reminds me how much fun I tin can have with you. So much fun riding clouds through the afternoon." And then the next poesy comes and the aforementioned thing—I say, "It's getting belatedly, time to get to bed." She says, "I don't want to go to bed. I want to stay up all night and wait for the sun." So it'due south an interesting concept. I've never written a song in a conversational class earlier.
Cute
MK: "Beautiful" is a rail that Chris Berry and I worked on a long time ago. I did a bunch of traveling around Africa with him in 2006 or 2007. Right after that, nosotros came dorsum to united states of america—he was living in New York—[and] he had this project that he called CB3 that I helped him with. It was just him and the bassist and drummer from Brazilian Girls—2 good friend of mine—Jesse Irish potato and Aaron Johnston. We co-wrote this rails together. Chris and I came up with the original concepts—the baseline and melodies—while [Murphy and Johnston] came upwardly with a lot of the other stuff. It was the mainstay of our short-lived ring's career. For like a year, that band just ran around and we played a agglomeration of shows. It was always one of the funniest songs to play, and I wanted to extend the life of that vocal because information technology was too good to non be performed and have information technology become to the song graveyard.
So nosotros reworked information technology. I did a whole lyrical rewrite that kind of expanded it from what it was. When Chris wrote information technology, it was definitely more of a booty-call song, talking to i girl, and I wanted to aggrandize the lyrical telescopic of it. So I rewrote the lyrics, and information technology'southward become a mainstay of the Cheese setlist over the concluding year and a half.
Information technology was actually fun to go to the studio, become it sounding as perfect as nosotros could get it and have it be actually big. That'southward one of the things we brought in that didn't require that much production help—although Jerry did alter the baseline in the center a little fleck, which made it audio a little bit more urgent. Just, overall, it was fun to just go in and whip it into shape.
Source: https://relix.com/articles/detail/track_by_track_the_string_cheese_incidents_believe/