Day 6, no recording today. Dropping James off at the airport at 5:30 AM for his 7 AM flight back to New York. But there’s still some work left on these songs- comping, editing, mixing and mastering. So, these songs will all be on the Winter EP. In the meantime, we’ve got 6 other studio tracks cued up for release, with the next one near the end of April.

- Sebastian

This was the last day of recording. We got to it right away, reviewing the guitar solo for “When It’s Over.” After review, we really liked the solo from the previous day, so James learned that solo, and plugged in to the Fender, and nailed it. Then he hit the solo on the outro, finishing up all the songs. With all the tracking done it was time for some fun-the live acoustic tracks. Each of the Eps we will be releasing will have 3 studio tracks, plus 2 live, acoustic tracks. The live tracks for this session were recorded differently than all the others. When we recorded at James’ place, we could only record 2 inputs at a time, so we recorded those with a pair of condensers in stereo x-y pattern. For these recordings we had the stereo condenser mics, but I also recorded the line out of the Takamine acoustic and had James sing through the Carvin mic. Another twist on these tracks was the bass. In the other live tracks I played James’ Fender Squire P-Bass. On these I played my new upright bass with pickup. To finish out the recordings we ran through live versions of “Better Day,” “Uninvited,” “Home In The Sky” and “The Blindness.”

- Sebastian

Day 4, Easter Sunday, started out with James making us huge-ass, shrimp omelets for late breakfast. Then an early start with more work on “The Blindness.” The vocals on “The Blindness” moved along really quickly, and then we moved on to recording bass. I typically play “The Blindness” on a 5-string bass, but my Jaguar bass had the perfect tone for this song. So, I ended up tuning down to D, and spending some time learning how to play the song in the new tuning. After that all the main tracks for all the songs were wrapped and it was time for guitar solos and other filler parts. James rocked guitar solos on “Better Day” & “When It’s Over.” When we record guitar solos we loop the solo section, and let James rip until he finds the solo he likes best, before we hit record. First we started with “The Blindness.” James had a melody part to finish up and the solo. We ended up going with the Fender for all those instead of the Marshall, for a less harsh sound. “When It’s Over” was the last song of the day. James didn’t like solo from the demo, so he started fresh, and we looped this one for a good hour, did a couple takes and decided to revisit on Day 5. After quitting time it was dinner at Texas Land & Cattle followed a trip down South Austin one of James’ new favorite guitar players, Red Volkeart, at The Continental Club with his band Heybale. The band featured 5 top country touring side men, and was outstanding!

- Sebastian