This
album is probably the most critically acclaimed and pivotal record
to date. This whole album started when I was on a first date with
my dear friend Marianne. Fall Silent was playing with Suckapunch
and God Among Men at Casa Margaritas. After seeing Fall Silent I
remember thinking, “what a sound! I just can’t get into
the screeching vocals though.” After the show, Chris Davis
of GAM was walking by. He was spotted by Levi who had also spotted
me. I recognized Levi from a New Blood recording I’d done
with him 2 years before. I could see Levi try to discreetly ask
Chris, “Is that Tom from Granny’s House?” Chris
confirmed the guess and Levi came up to me and said that Fall Silent
was getting ready to record.
After
2 months of pre-production and waiting for Whitesnake to take a
break at Sierra Sonics, we finally got Fall Silent and Convicted
Innocence in the same week. I’d gotten used to the screeching
by then.
Here
started the tradition of having a theme for each record. The theme
for this record was “Star Wars.” We all brought our
old Star Wars figures and playsets out of storage and had them set-up
all over the studio.
On
the first day of tracking they came with a surprise cover song that
we hadn’t gone through in pre-prod. They wouldn’t tell
me what it was and agreed that if it sucked, they’d shelve
it. Heartbreaker was the tune, we kept the second take, and I added
the count off and audience of a USC Marching Band live album before
and after the song. When I was at SC we did Heartbreaker as well.
I’m playing bass drum in the beginning and the director, Dr.
Aurther C. Bartner is counting it off. This started the tradition
of doing a personality cover of some odd ball song on each record.
On
a technical note, I had a bad patch cable on the kick drum that
made it sound really thin. At the time I thought it was his clicks
on the drumhead. So I eq’d the piss out of it and got that
really striking sound. Really neat mistake.
No
Strength was tracked and mixed on the Abby Road Neve console we
had at that time. There was no automation on the mix and buttons
were flying off while I was doing cuts. Since it’s release
it’s gotten world recognition and has lowered the limbo stick
on independent hardcore recording. Most importantly, it gave me
an appreciation of a genre I couldn’t fathom before and a
reputation as a producer who does sick hard-core. Any finally, on
the “Sexy Erotic” part of the bonus track, that was
recorded while Levi was cutting vocals. The afore mentioned Marianne
entered the studio between takes. He started the improv off with
“Hey Marianne” and sang it to her.
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