Day 6 - Sunset Strip

Day 6 - Sunset Strip

Double checking bass comps and dropping some verse clean guitars. Typically on the day we are due to start vocals Neal has a cold. Only the British can get a cold in California in the summer.

So we head to the store to get as many drugs as we can buy. Our friend Coop who is on tour with Bastille kindly invites us over to Sunset strip to go for beers at the legendary Rainbow....So we oblige in the hope we bump into Lemmy.

Day 5 - Noise continued & Bass

Day 5 - Noise continued & Bass

In the morning we tweak more minor glitches and Kev finishes of the rythym guitars. Jon is now on Coffee duty (Fresh pot!) Neal Starts and finishes All the Bass tracks in the afternoon on a vintage 1977 Fender Precision bass owned by Ken’s Grandfather and used by the late Jason from Pennywise, rumour has it he wrote Bro Hymn on it. We also track through his amplifier.......

 

Day 4 - Monday Noise

Day 4 - Monday Noise

Dennis heads over to lend an ear and being the guitar tech for System of a Down he knows a thing or two about guitars more than us. So we spend some time fine tuning the tone for the rhythms and choosing the right guitar and amp/cab combination before laying anything down. 

Everyone pitches in re-stringing the vintage guitars Ken has for us. He also has a stack of amps for us to choose from and play with... including Fletcher's JCM Marshall Slash head which was given to him by Brett Gueritz of Bad Religion/Epitaph for his birthday, and Fletcher's Crate stage amp. 

We settle for a Vintage les Paul through a Slash JCM head and Marshall Cabinet for the majority of the rhythms. Kev ploughes through the majority of the guitar tracks in between minor drum glitches we find in editing.

Day 3 - Drums all done, Let's eat

Day 3 - Drums all done, Let's eat

After a day of tweaking extra drum parts we have an early break as we all feel a little delicate from the Kings win.

We are kindly invited to Ken’s friend’s Cody and Kelly’s for a bbq on Memorial weekend Sunday. Little did we know whey would waste Filet Mignon steak (the best we have ever eaten and expertly cooked by Cody) and $60 bottles of wine on us, with an awesome Avocado Salsa and Lemon Blueberry cake. Felt silly taking Liquor store Chianti and Modelo from Abe's now. They invite us for more meals before we leave, all extremely nice people great company.

Day 2 - Drums in full flow

Day 2 - Drums in full flow

Jon finishes off the last three tracks and we send drums for editing and treating to our mixer Dean in Hollywood. We got for our first Tri-Tips down at the ford fair and we take the evening off and go to Critters to watch the LA Kings play off ice hockey game.

Soaked in Bud Light we get over enthusiastic when they win. Little do we know this is the first of many games. We follow up with visiting Fletcher from Pennywise’s opening night of his burger joint The Standing Room. After nearly getting turned away to the “List only” event the bouncer suddenly realises Ken is top of the guest list. We sink Hoisin burgers, sweet potato fries and free beer jubilantly. Go home in a food coma where Dennis reveals he is the proud owner of a Blue Peter badge.

Day 1 - No Sleep, Scratch Tracks and Set up

Day 1 - No Sleep, Scratch Tracks and Set up

After everyone not being able to sleep due to jet lag and adrenaline, we head to early breakfast on the beach at Scotty's.

We head to Ken’s house and studio bright and early. We meet the studio animals Rags the Dog and Roks the Cat. Drums have already been setup and tuned by Arctic Monkeys' drum tech and sounds great. All pre-prepped and tuned for us so we literally jump straight into laying scratch tracks down for Jon one by one.

Once Jon hits his stride (and gets over splitting his head open early on on the garage door) by the end of the day we have 8 songs fully drum tracked ready for editing. After a productive full day I borrow Dennis's Bike and cycle to Abe's our go to Liquor store for a 24 box of Pabst Blue Ribbons. 

Day Zero - Take to the Skies

Day Zero - Take to the Skies

We arrive in LAX at 7:30pm after an 11 hour flight on the behemoth A380 airbus. Ken our manager and all round main man picks us up through the holiday weekend traffic, and we get our first glimpse of Hermosa Beach at night. Dennis our host takes us for a few local beers (Pabst Blue Ribbons) at a veterans bar and food is consumed and an early-ish night is needed as Day 1 begins early tommorrow.