Recording Update

by Craig Yarnold

A couple of weeks ago we recorded lead and backing vocals for most of the songs we've tracked so far.

It's really great to add layers to the songs and see them come together. It's amazing how a song comes to life as you add all the pieces together in the recording studio.

Jon did a great job busting out lead vocals in record time, especially considering the environment in which we're recording. You see, we're doing this at our rehearsal room, which is located in a big cement-box-of-a-building, way out in east county San Diego (El Cajon to be precise). So it's hot and dry, and we're surrounded by loud metal bands. Sometimes a band can be playing down the hall, but somehow the extreme noise of ceiling-high stacks of Crate amplifiers just pours through the walls like the devil's own blood.

This means we frequently have to put recording on hold while we try to figure out when neighboring bands will be finished rehearsing. Otherwise, we end up with lots of low-end background noise getting recorded on horn and vocal tracks. In a way, this kinds gives the recording some character. You can't hear the noise when you listen to the whole song at once - just when you isolate tracks.

Just as with the horn-lines, recording the backup vocals gave us the opportunity to fine-tune these parts and see what needs to be changed, improved, or given the boot. It's also given us new motivation to pay more attention to backup vocals during the song-writing process and for our live performances.

Other than that, we're now up to 11 songs written, with a few more to come. We may even put together an interesting cover-tune - modified, of course, to suit the Buck-O-Nine style.

We've got several shows coming up, including gigs in San Diego and Hawaii, so visit buckonine.com and scroll down on the homepage to see our calendar.