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

Day 3 started out with migas for a late breakfast at Maudies North Lamar and back in studio. We still had work to do on “When It’s Over,” We did all the electric guitars on Friday, today was all about acoustic guitars and vocals on that song. We recorded James perferoming acoustic guitar parts with 2 different acoustics. The main part is played on my 1970s Kay acoustic, and the rhythm is the Takamine we used on “Better Day.” We also did a little editing on the song form, trimming out some verse lead-ins, bringing the song to about 5:30 minutes from just over 6 minutes. This one features both me and James on vocals. James takes the lead, singing in the chorus, and lots of screaming in the choruses. My part is a harmony to the verse vocals. After wrapping up “When It’s Over” we tracked all the rhythm guitars for “The Blindness” and then headed out to Trudy’s for a late dinner and Margaritas.

- Sebastian

Second Day in the studio is wrapped. We started out the day showing James around downtown Austin and Lake Austin. Went for some crepes for lunch, and back in studio by 12:30. We started with James singing the vocals for “Better Day.” Although we had already figured what we wanted on this track, we spent a little more time tweaking melodies. After “Better Day” vocals, we moved on to recording the bass. We spent a little more time on bass than I’d like, but, I’ve never been happy with my part. So, we looped the different parts until I got the part I was really happy with. With “Better Day” in the can, we moved on to guitars for “When It’s Over.” For this one we broke out my Fender Deluxe 90 amp to record James performing 2 clean guitar parts in the verses. The Fender was close mic’d with a single SM57. We were back to the Marshall for the distorted guitars on the choruses. We wrapped the session after 7 hours, I grilled up some dinner and then we headed downtown for some live music.

- Sebastian