AOTW Records New Single @ Clearwave

From the other side of the glass...

Ahead of the Wake and I have shared a number of fun times.
This past weekend ranks right up at the top.

A few months back, the band and I, competed against other musical groups at a Habitat for Humanity fund-raising event. Long story short, on that cold, cold, day in Spring, we managed to best the competition and win a free tracking day at a local recording studio.

Ironically, the same studio that supported the event and donated the free time, happened to be a studio owner I had previously spoken with only weeks before. I remember nervously calling Jeremy Stephens up one day after stumbling across his website. On that particular day I wanted to ask him about recording business stuff...such as, what to do when you're fresh out of school and freelancing. Nothing' like being green to make you truly appreciate those with experience...

Jeremy has spent the last 12 years engineering and producing various types of music, various places. He currently owns one of the finest recording studios in the area.

Besides having a decade's worth of experience and fabulous collection of recording equipment, Jeremy is also formally trained. When he's not recording his own projects, he's engineering for his friend and mentor, Johnny Sandlin. He and Johnny go back as far as Gregg Allman's "Searching for Simplicity."

So, on with the session.

Load was at noon, and by 1:00 pm we had thoroughly demolished the sanctity of the main room with guitars, amp, and tangles of cable. Jeremy chose to put Clint, Zach and Eric in that main tracking area, with a view to both the control room and the drum booth, so as to allow them to effectively cue off each other. He also established a handy talk-back or cue mic in the room so clear communication between bandmates and production crew could be sustained.

Jeremy went about routing cables as I connected mics and headphones to the studio tielines. By around 2:00 pm, all the sounds had been set, and all the headphone mixes had been completed.

Then Murphy's law struck (literally) with a vengance.

North Alabama has experienced a very tough drought throughout the first half of this year. As if on cue, precisely before we were to attempt a first take, at least half of the City of Decatur lost electricity. I believe the irony went something like this, "The drought ends on the one day we set out to record..."

Jeremy was quick with contingencies. When the lights went off, the band became stranded in the tracking rooms. The cellphones illuminated the darkness as we all proceeded to stumble around in the dark. Jeremy grabbed a flashlight and some candles and rescued us from the utter confusion.

We obviously couldn't track without electricity, so we were left to marvel in the sounds of thunderstorm looming overhead.

After a period of time, and a few subtle promptings from band members, I called "lunch."
We took advantage of the time in other words...

I went home to grab a backup hard drive, while Jeremy and the Band went for a bite to eat. When we left we noticed that various sections of the town were out of power, traffic lights had ceased to function, and there was mass confusion among the cars in the streets.

Around 3 pm we all returned to the studio to find the power grid back up.
[sigh of relief...]

With the lights and studio power restored, we commenced to record AOTW's hot new single,"Rewind."

We tracked the song a total of 3 times, and collectively decided which of the three we like best. Once that was determined, I called for a certain set of small repairs and instrument overdubs to be performed.

Jeremy was nice enough to let me punch a few using his Nuendo DAW.

Here's a shot of Trey and Zach lounging in the control room, listening back to their accomplishments of the day.

The last thing to receive attention was Trey's vocal part.


Jeremy ran Trey through a Soundelux U195 (now Bock 195 I believe,) into a Langevin channel module that had been removed (and racked) from a Langevin vintage recording console.

The comfort of the studio atmosphere must have set Trey free that day. He performed his vocal part excellently.

My appreciation and gratitude go out to Ahead of the Wake for allowing me to be a part of their musical careers.

Our special thanks goes out to Jeremy Stephens for graciously allowing us his time and giving us a professional experience.

I think its safe to say that we all enjoyed working together.

Contact Information for the parties involved can be found in these links:
http://www.myspace.com/aheadofthewake
http://www.clearwavestudio.com/
http://www.myspace.com/clearwaverecordingstudio
http://www.myspace.com/afarawayland
http://afarawayland.blogspot.com/

Credit List:

"Rewind," was written and performed by Ahead of the Wake.

Tracking: engineered by Jeremy Stephens at Clearwave Recording Studio

Arrangement: Andrew Wayland Hull and Ahead of the Wake

Produced by: Andrew Wayland Hull and Ahead of the Wake