Steven Henningsgard

Well ladies and gentlemen, Iron Thrones is officially back in Minnesota. With tracking for the album complete, and mixing underway, I feel like I can finally decompress and start to reflect on what the hell just happened. So much of the last month has been so far out of the realm of possibility, I’m still not completely convinced that the whole thing wasn’t just some crazy dream. Granted, as a guy that generally walks, bikes, or drives wherever I need to go, the fact that I flew across the country at hundreds of miles per hour is enough to boggle the mind in and of itself, as common as it might be to some. But even aside from the time zone change and significantly different scenery, the experiences we had on this trip changed a lot of things, both personally and in terms of how the band operates. Even the way we express ourselves through our music has likely changed, although not in a dishonest or completely unnatural fashion.

Of course, as a band who touts themselves as “striv[ing] to express ourselves honestly and completely through our music, so that we may deeply connect with people all over the world,” it’s important for me to say that our goal hasn’t changed. Everything on the record we made came from us, and was performed by ourselves. That said, we did essentially have a fifth member of the band on this record, acting as a sort of sagely guide to help us along our path, personified by one Will Putney (our producer). Because of his influence, parts of the songs on this record are very likely different than they would have been had he not been there. I realize that this is likely tripping some rather prickly triggers in some peoples’ minds, and so I will elaborate and explain this apparent contradiction in philosophies.

Music, much like any other form of communication, is by its nature an imperfect medium when it comes to expressing the emotions/mindset of the communicator. This might depend on the goal of the one doing the communicating, but I can speak at least for myself in saying that when I write music, I’m attempting to communicate my thoughts/ideas/emotions with those willing to listen. As a relatively young musician, I’m still very much learning my craft: striving to express myself honestly and completely through my music. It’s an interesting and important contradiction to realize that on the one hand, nobody can ever be a “perfect” musician, because there’s always something else to learn; yet on the other hand, it could be argued that anybody who is constantly striving for honesty is by definition a “perfect” musician. The constant struggle to perfect one’s craft and learn more about music itself, is in my mind what makes a great musician.

Some might argue that the purest music is that without outside influence, but I think that’s an incomplete and impossible (and thus irrelevant) argument. If one has senses, then one has outside influences. The ability to analyze and interpret things we experience is the very thing that makes us human, and indeed is expressing such is the definition of music. As such, it is not whether or not we’re open to outside influences, but our reasoning behind incorporating said outside influences into our music that determines our honesty. If a musician makes a musical decision based on another’s advice with perceived monetary or social gain in mind, then that musician has sold out. Put in layman’s terms, if you change anything about your music in order to appeal to a wider audience, with money in mind, then you’ve sold out. However, if someone whose opinion you respect, feels the thoughts/ideas/emotions you’re trying to convey might not be coming through the way you had intended, and that if you work on it a little bit, you could come up with something truly awesome, then you’d be cheating yourself not to at least entertain the idea. It’s not dishonest to re-think something: every song I’ve ever written or co-written has gone through many, many revisions before the final revision is put to ‘tape’, and even then many times it changes even after that, when playing it live!

And so, when making this record, Will mentioned several points in our songs that in his mind could be improved, and if we agreed, we set to work on improving it ourselves. There were some parts that he suggested changing, that we disagreed with and they ended up staying the same as they originally were. The point of having a producer is to bring a respected and experienced opinion to the table, with the goal of improving our song-writing and performance skills. I can safely say that every significant change you hear between Visions of Light and the new record, is stuff we’d planned ourselves before ever meeting Will. There are some new elements that will throw some people off, maybe even lose us some fans. Fortunately, as we’ve said before, we’re somewhat of a selfish band: we make music for ourselves. The reason we love our fans isn’t because they validate our love for our own stuff (we’d love it regardless of if we had any fans), but because they love what we’re doing as much as we do. If we all wanted to throw some bagpipes into the mix, we’d fucking do it, and if it was expressing what we were trying to express, we could give two shits if some producer doesn’t like it. We’d find a different producer. Fortunately, by some strange fate, the producer we happened to be set up with in this contest was a huge fan of a lot of the same music we were into (it turns out he was already a big fan of one of my old bands!), and so much like the contest itself, things just sort of magically worked out. Most of the suggestions Will made, were of things we already knew were weak points in our songs. He was more of a sort of Yoda character, pinpointing our weaknesses and not allowing them to end up on the record, and while I was honestly quite resistant to it at first as it was quite foreign to me, I ended up thanking him for it.

I’m a much stronger musician, guitarist, songwriter, and producer because of this experience, and I’m proud to say that regardless of whether or not our new material and how it was produced rubs some people the wrong way, I know it’s completely honest and 100% pure. If you dislike this record, you’d have disliked it anyway even if we’d have produced it ourselves. If you love it, you’d have loved it regardless as well. The only difference is that we had some much-appreciated help along the way, and have grown and matured as a band and songwriters as a result of it.

Hopefully, y’all dig it

Cheers,
-steve.h

I had this completely messed up dream where I went to New York, met up with Jamie Roberts (PR, BigMachineMedia), Rob Blasko (Ozzy Osbourne), Maria Brink (In This Moment), and Bram from MetalInsider.net, and went clothing shopping, while the dudes from Metal Injection followed us around with a camera. We got like a billion hoodies and shirts and shoes, and ate burgers and drank Long Island Iced Teas. Then later, my Dad called and bought the whole band dinner at the way-too-nice-for-our-band restaurant downstairs at the hotel we’re staying at. It was nuts.

Oh wait, that really happened a couple of days ago. What a completely insane trip this has been.

We started off at an Army Surplus Store (not really our thing, but it was a convenient place to meet up) and I got an old pair of boots. I later discovered the sole needed to be re-glued, which I’ll do later, but overall they’re pretty comfy and practical. The guys think I should get some sweat pants and tuck them into the boots. I don’t share their Cannibal Corpse-inspired enthusiasm for said questionable outerwear, but it might need to happen simply for the sake of doing something ridiculous and embarrassing: something I have a well-developed natural penchant for any way, independent of outside influence. We’ll see. (Hint: nope.)

Next on the list was some sort of hipster thrift store, featuring such gems as leather pants (multiple colors, of course), torn up dresses, ironic button-up shirts, and what appeared to be a combination lighter/mini-dildo. I doubt a more convincing indie-rock-band-heaven-on-earth exists outside of LA. Unfortunately for the very nice people trying to help us find some decent clothes, we weren’t really digging it. It sort of felt like we were back in Junior High, and our moms were taking us shopping for new school clothes: absolutely pure in their intentions, but somewhat fuzzy on the details of modern teenage fashion. I felt a little bad about turning down their suggestions, especially considering Maria and Blasko had been flown out from California just to help us out, but a large part of marketing is knowing your audience, and the people that we know that listen to our music would be pretty pissed off if we ended up changing our image. I really doubt that anybody involved with the contest wanted that at all.

I’d imagine it’d be hard to figure out what to do if charged with enhancing a metal band’s image: part of the point of metal is that it doesn’t really matter what you look like or what you wear, as long as you’re honest about it. I can understand the point of presenting a somewhat unified image though. If everyone in the band is wearing similar-themed stuff, and then one guy’s wearing some sort of insane retro-80’s-neon-throwup getup, that’s very likely going to throw some people off in a not-great way. Even metal fans can fickle and image-driven, sometimes more so than other genres’ fans. Just look at what happened to Metallica the second they cut their hair. With that simple decision, their entire image changed. Accompanied by the not-subtle change in their music, we were left with essentially a completely different band. Would Metallica fans have felt the same way about the band’s new sound if they’d kept their long hair and standard metal-band getup? What if the band had cut their hair just before releasing Master of Puppets? Would that album have been received as well? Obviously, I don’t have the answers, but it leaves you with something to think about. What if Metallica looked like the guys in Cobra Starship or Ratt when they put out “Kill ‘em All”? Hell, part of the reason they were so popular is because they looked like regular metal dudes, not glammed-up chicks.

Fortunately, us Iron Thrones dudes mostly wear pretty standard stuff when it comes to metal bands: jeans, t-shirts, & hoodies. Unfortunately for the people charged with enhancing our image, there’s really not much you could do to make us look like we sound, and so with very few exceptions, we ended up just getting more of pretty much exactly what we already owned. We also found that the budget we had to work with went quite a long way when purchasing “normal dude” clothes, vs. hipster stuff. The only slightly out-of-character purchase ended up being my boots, which I’d been needing for a while as the tread on my previous pair had worn out, causing me to fall on my ass several times last winter.

Any way, I’d say the biggest take-away from this experience was coming to realize just how much a band’s image is intimately connected with perceived legitimacy, particularly in the metal scene, whether or not most metal fans would like to admit it. This is especially true now that we’re in a time where most people end up seeing a band before they even hear them. First impressions are everything, and the image you portray has a very real affect on how people experience and interpret your music.

Cheers,
-steve.h

Apologies for the lack of updates. One of the first things you’ll learn when recording an album on a tight time schedule, is that there’s rarely much time for anything else. This is especially true when the music isn’t completely written (writing complete songs while in the studio is either a rare and expensive luxury, or a great way to make shitty tunes). Fortunately, we were 90% of the way there when we got here, and by the end of preproduction I’d say we were 95% done. The rest is being figured out along the way, and I think it’s turning out fantastically! Will is truly an inspiration to watch, especially from a beginner producer/engineer’s point of view. He edits as we’re tracking, and deletes bad takes with ruthless efficiency, which makes for some incredibly clean project files. I’ll be changing the way I work within sessions for sure. I’ve also noticed that much of the editing within Logic (the program we’re using to record) is very similar to editing within Reaper, and while I still think Pro Tools’ drum editing is superior, Logic looks to be vastly superior when it comes to project management and pretty much everything else. Because Reaper is such an inexpensive and customizable program (not to mention very DIY/Independent-minded), I think I’ll be using it as my primary rig hence-forth.

Tracking for the album is going extremely well. Pete kicked out the drums in 2 days, leaving an extra full day for overdubs and other fun craziness (I’ll try to get Pete to explain in more detail, as I wasn’t there for said overdubs. I do know a huge 26″ kick drum was used for something, and I heard tales of shakers…). After that came a full day of editing for Will (he’s a big fan of doing multiple takes, and taking the best pieces of each to make a whole), while we went out to New York for the “shopping spree” portion of the contest. I’ll get into detail about that some other time, as we did learn some interesting things about image and such. Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, I’ll give away the ending: 95% of the stuff we got was different colors/versions of clothes we already owned and wore every day. I did get a couple of pairs of pants, which pretty much completes the trip for me.

Any way, back to the album! We’re in the middle of guitar/bass tracking right now, going song-by-song and piece-by-piece. We’ve been using different amps and distortion pedals for each section/movement, as well as layering a couple at a time for overdubs. It’s really quite cool to hear how the characteristics of each type of distortion help keep the song moving. For example, using a morbidly crushing tone for a slow heavy part, and a faster shred tone for faster shred parts, helps to accentuate the difference between parts and make for a very dynamic sound. All-in-all, we’re using around five different pedals and four different amps, sometimes chaining two different distortion pedals together. I’m not in the mood to check my math, but I think that makes for 60 different combinations. Add in the obvious tweakability of each pedal/amp, and multiple channels for each amp, and you’ll start to get an idea of the range of sounds we’re using on this album. Epic. That’s how many.

That just about concludes this update. There’s a lot more to tell, but I need to go track some more guitars in a couple of minutes and there’s one thing I’d like to address before leaving. Some of you have asserted that my posts up until now have been largely inane, speaking more of hotel/bagel problems than of any real content. I do admit that as a participant in a contest geared towards teaching independent bands the ins and outs of the industry, I do have an obligation to share my experiences and knowledge-gained with the world, and this journal would seem to be the logical place to do so. That being the case, these writings were originally posted on my personal website, with the intention of keeping family and friends updated on the contest and on myself personally. Shortly after posting the first six days, it was suggested that these journals might be some fun and potentially useful content to share on the No Label Needed website, and so they were posted (as you can see!) This was one of two reasons that the first few posts are generally lacking in any real content; the second being that not much went on in the first week. We flew in, met Shadows Fall for a day, drove to New Jersey, and didn’t really do a hell of a lot else up until pre-production started.

As one person hinted at in the comments section of one of the blog posts, part of being in a band that’s working with larger organizations is learning to “hurry up and wait”. Schedules have to be coordinated, things get pushed back, shit happens, etc., and sometimes you’re left waiting for a couple of days (or in some extreme cases, months or more). Learning how to be patient in these situations and to utilize the time given to you is a very important lesson to learn, as I’ve found out in the last couple of weeks. Had I known just how unprepared I was for some of the guitar tracking, I would’ve been practicing my ass off during those days off (as Curt was: he’s a smart guy!). That’s another good lesson to keep in mind: never leave any parts of your songs to chance. If you’re not absolutely 100% on something, you need to work on it over and over and over again. Get a laptop right now, throw Reaper or Garageband on it, and record your entire album front-to-back before even thinking of getting into an expensive studio where time is a factor. Unless you have the kind of budget that allows for weeks of just writing within the studio, you’ll just be wasting everyone’s time by not having everything 100% ready. Even worse, you’ll be taking time away from experimenting with fun overdubs and such, which can ultimately result in a relatively sparse and stale recording, depending on how things get done. In our defense, we found out we’d won only a couple of weeks before flying down, and had to ship the drums out the week before we arrived, so we were somewhat pressed for time, but I could’ve done a lot more preparation, and you can be damn sure I will next time!

Fortunately, things have been going smoothly and tracking is going extremely well. Much like everything related to this contest, we’ve been lucky

Cheers,
-steve.h

*NOTE: I’ve changed the names from “Day X” to “Update X”, as I’ve had very little time to think about blogging, and as such a lot of the content will be out of chronological order and updated sporadically.

We decided it’d be a good idea to wake up a little early today, so we could get a good start before heading to the studio. For some reason, it would appear that this hotel has decided to put a modest spread of bagels and various pastries out at 6:00 AM, and then stop refilling it past a certain point (breakfast ends at 11:00). I can say with some certainty that the “certain point” at which they stop is somewhere well before 8:00, as there was very little left by the time Adam and I got down there. I don’t mean to sound unappreciative of our free club-level continental breakfast: it’s really quite wonderful to have, and generally tastes quite good. It just seems somewhat odd to run it the way they do. Perhaps they had a huge crowd this morning that cleared them out? Or is it possible that there is a widespread bagel shortage nobody told us about?

Any way, we each had a croissant with a thick piece of chocolate in the middle of it (a questionable decision on the baker’s part) and some juice, and then went to check on Pete and Curt. When we walked in, we immediately noticed the water slowly dripping down from the ceiling. Curt mentioned it to a passing housekeeping lady, who got one of the hotel managers to come take a look. They decided it’d be best to have the guys switch rooms when we got back from the studio, which was fine with them as their keys had both ceased to work, as had mine. At least we now know why Pete couldn’t get into their room that one night.

Aching to get started on our record (and not being super-stoked on being at the hotel at that particular moment), we decided to head out to the studio a bit early. Although we were immediately greeted by a cold, rainy New Jersey day, our spirits couldn’t be dampened: we were going to the studio! We had a relatively good idea of where it was (two blocks away), but ended up getting directions to the correct building by a possible mob guy, who apparently owned the place. Once we got inside, we followed the signs to The Syndicate (the “big cheese” company running the whole show), where we found Will (Putney, our Producer) and Machine (our other Producer) hanging out with Marc in his office. We exchanged handshakes and greetings, and immediately got a good vibe. It really seems like everybody involved with this project is really excited to be working with us! Which, as you might imagine, only adds to the surreal-ness of this whole experience. This is certainly the strangest experience of my entire life, bar none.

Eager to get down to business, Will gave us a brief studio tour. It turns out The Machine Shop is literally across the hall from The Syndicate, and is clearly a very DIY and even somewhat modest operation (in some ways: the wall of boutique guitar amps is decidedly un-modest). It’s clear why they’re involved with the contest!

While Pete was setting up his drums, will let us know the game plan. For the next three days, we’ll be doing pre-production at The Machine Shop. Then, drum tracking at a different place (with a larger room for a better natural drum sound), and the rest back at The Machine Shop. It’s nice to know that the budget for this album allowed for so much time/attention to detail: it’s pretty much guaranteed to sound completely ridiculous. We’re so far beyond stoked at this point, it almost hurts!

Once Pete had his drums set up, we immediately got down to business tracking for pre-production. Because I’m really tired and have some studio homework to do, I’ll likely detail the process in a later blog, but essentially pre-production consists of laying down the tracks as we have them, then messing with tempos and arrangement, dealing with any weak spots and re-writing parts if necessary. It’s been really interesting to hear Will’s thoughts on the songs: he essentially pinpointed exactly the parts we knew were weak beforehand, and called us out on them. I couldn’t believe how quickly he caught each and every weak spot that we’d let slide, and set us to work figuring out something killer to replace it. As an aspiring producer/engineer, it’s really very inspiring.

After a quick lunch break (Thai food!), I had a brief meeting with Marc, just to catch up. It turns out the aforementioned food budget is indeed real! We’re saved! Thank yoooou Marc/Scion/Syndicate!

I ran back to tell the guys, who were equally excited, and we got back to work tracking another song. Machine came in while we were working on the track, and took the time to chat with me about the record, and about production/engineering in general. It was nice to know that he/Will didn’t plan on heavy quantizing/editing/sound-replacement on the drums (which made us all happy, especially Pete), and that generally the production style he uses is largely dictated by the band. It turns out that the albums he’s worked on that have robotically-accurate drums, were made so at the behest of the bands themselves, which I find interesting. I can’t relate to artists would want their performance to be artificially changed, but I feel like I do understand their point of view. Robotically-accurate performances are simply part of their art: that’s the sound they’re going for. Again, I can’t relate, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

As day turned to night, Will left us to work on some of the new parts we’d written. We hammered out a few ideas, but burnt out rather quickly after a full day of playing. Walking back through the rain, we started to realize the full scope of just how much work we had left to do. Curiously, as the reality was sinking in, the idea of food and beer at Houlihans became more and more appetizing. Adam, Pete, and I gave in to the craving, and had a good discussion about the record. The waitresses were slightly odd in a way I can’t easily describe, but were inarguably quite nice.

Burnt out and ready for sleep, we made it back into the hotel (where we AGAIN discovered our keycards were non-functional) and happily dove into our beds, with the hopes of getting some decent rest in our heads. That rhymed, and reminded me of a quote from some Dr. Suess Christmas story I can’t quite put my finger on.

Cheers,
-steve.h

P.S. Apologies for the delayed posts: it’s going to be hard work from here on out, and some days might need to be condensed or put-off until I have time. I’ll do my absolute best to keep these blogs daily, for those of you who are interested in our progress!

Honestly, we didn’t really do much for the past two days. We’re starting to get some pretty insane cabin fever, and are just aching to get into the studio. Perhaps that was the idea of bringing us here a bit early?

We did start an old-school thrash metal project called “Keg”. It’s pretty much a studio project, and by studio I mean Garageband, but maybe by the end of the trip we’ll have two CD’s! Not likely, of course, but hey: this is Jersey. Who knows what could happen?! (cue ominous music)

Definitely more going on tomorrow,
-steve.h

This morning, we decided to wake up at 8 and see what this free continental breakfast was all about. It turned out to be pretty much what I expected: a spread of decent-quality bagels, danishes, croissants, a variety of juices, fruit, and some really great muffins. I had a bagel with cream cheese and some OJ. Sure, it’s nothing like the crazy non-free buffet they offer, but as a bunch of broke hungry dudes, we’re really happy to have it! Many thanks to Marc and his contacts for hooking that up.

Still not sure of exactly how we were going to get there, we started out for New York and BigMachineMedia (the PR company working with us). Maps in hand, we made it over to the light rail station a block or so from the hotel. I use the word “station” lightly, as it was really more of a platform with a couple of automated ticket machines. While we were purchasing tickets, a train came into the station, which we immediately jumped on for fear of missing it. It was an unfortunate decision, as it quickly became apparent that we were going the wrong way. We ended up at the last station on the line, waiting for the correct train to come back. At this point, we started to realize just how cold and windy it was. Pete was the only one smart enough to bring and wear a coat: nice work Pete. Fortunately, we saw a ground hog! Unfortunately, it ran away before we could ask for directions.

We ended up getting on the right train, which took us to the beginning of “The Path”; a little subway that took us right into 33rd street in Manhattan. Very convenient, I’d say. Rather than switching to the NYC subway, we decided to walk the 20 or so blocks over to BigMachine, via Times Square and 30 Rock. On the way, Curt welcomed a busload of tourists by flipping them off. It was pretty funny. I ended up grabbing a street-gyro, which wasn’t that great but made me happy.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too windy for most of the trip, but we were thankful for the chance to warm up for a while inside with Jamie and the incredibly awesome Big Machine Media crew. They were immediately really welcoming and seemed genuinely happy we were there, which is unfortunately rather uncommon when it comes to this band. People on the East Coast just seem different, and in a really refreshing way. I sort of wish we could move out here in some ways.

We ended up talking with Jamie for what seemed like a couple of hours (I wasn’t looking at the clock). I think some of the major take-aways were:

- Being on a record label isn’t as important as we thought.

- By making ourselves “the label”, it keeps everything in our control.

- Pretty much everything labels are looking for these days, are things that once you’ve done them, makes labels significantly less necessary.

- Most people that tell you they won’t help you out because you’re not on a label, are really saying they don’t see enough organization and professionalism when they see your band.

- For the most part, PR agents get paid the same regardless of whether or not you take on the opportunities they give you. They just genuinely want to help and give you every opportunity possible to help give your band some exposure.

- Without a label, a significantly higher proportion of any profits will go straight to the band. You don’t need to make as much money because you get to keep more of it.

- Utilizing each member’s interests as marketing tools can be a great way to market the band to niche audiences.

- When it comes to sponsorships, talking up your favorite gear and playing a lot of shows are good ways to start relationships with the companies whose gear you enjoy using, potentially making sponsorships more likely in the future.

- By having all useful members of the band in charge of different areas of band management, you significantly increase how much you can get done and how effective (affective?) the band can be.

- When it comes to booking bigger shows & tours, hiring a great professional manager can be a huge help.

- We probably won’t have to wear Affliction clothes for our photo shoot, as she agreed it wouldn’t portray the type of image one would generally associate with our type of band. Basically, we’re not really “tough guys”.

It was interesting to hear that Jamie’s sense of the necessity of labels was somewhat different than Shadows Fall’s, who thought labels still played a pretty major and necessary part of bands’ careers. I’d bet the reality is somewhere near the middle. On the one hand, these days all of the tools are there for bands to have successful careers without the need of a label. On the other hand, labels can be extremely effective at what they do, and some have quite a lot of cash to push their will on the public. My guess is genre and target audience have a lot to do with it. I think a band like Shadow’s Fall has a pretty wide and established target audience, compared to a band like us whose fans don’t really seem to fit in to specific demographics very easily, and seem harder to reach. I could be completely wrong, of course, but that’s my take on the whole thing so far. My views and opinions could change drastically in the next few weeks, and I’m not sure that the rest of the guys feel the same way, but this is my blog dammit. I do what I want! You don’t know me!

Any way, after a fantastic lunch kindly paid for by Jamie, she let us go with a kind smile and some homework (not dissimilar to my 8th grade social studies teacher, although he was a short hairy dude who rode a harley to work). We’re working on some bio information that should help make our press kit significantly better than anything we’d ever have come up with. We made our way back to “The Path”, checking out the Apple Store (I was the only one in the store with a blackberry: I think it made them uncomfortable. Which was awesome.), Central Park, a bunch of horses, some duck butts, a sea lion, and the rocks made famous by the smash blockbuster super-hit, “Little Nicky”, some extremely creepy bells, a Sam Ash where Joe Satriani was signing some shit (we didn’t go in), and Times Square again. I got a bottle of water on the way that cost me $2.75. On a related note, I highly recommend bringing a back pack and a bottle of water if you ever plan on a day out in Manhattan. Also, cut your toenails as short as you can, so they don’t end up digging into your toes and making you sad and sore.

We made it back to the hotel by way of The Path and the light rail without incident, although as we were walking back, it occurred to us that there was no reason whatsoever to have purchased tickets for the light rail, as our tickets were never checked or used. Bummer.

We got another sandwich at the deli, along with a fucking insane brownie/cake/smore/heart-attack hybrid super-thick fat-bomb of death, called a “Rocky Road” (picture below). Although broke, I decided it was an inexpensive reward for as much walking as I did, plus I just got my meager tax returns back. I took one bite and realized it will take me the rest of the week to finish it, thus extending the usefulness of my purchase. I won’t be needing or wanting any dessert for the rest of the week. Maybe not any sugar whatsoever. This thing is offensively massive, and tastes way too good to not have 10,000+ calories. So much for shedding a few pounds, hah!

Just before going to bed, I got a text from Jamie saying we were off the hook for any Affliction clothes, and that the idea of a food budget wasn’t out of the question! All in all, a tremendously awesome day. A+.

The next couple days will almost certainly be filled with lyrics and solos; I might combine them into one diary a few days from now. We’ll see.

Cheers,
-steve.h

This morning, I woke up to find Pete sleeping on the couch. Apparently, last night he tried to get into his & Curt’s room (where Curt was already asleep) and the key didn’t work. Rather than knocking on the door for a long time, he just gave up and slept on the not-entirely-comfortable couch, with no blanket or pillows. Adam called Curt, but he didn’t answer. Apparently, Curt never received the call. He also claims that the door wasn’t locked. Strange…

We went back to the food court where we’d eaten Subway the day before, and found a fair amount of business-type people there, all wearing the same outfits. Apparently, you’re expected to wear an upsetting button-down and ugly khaki’s or suit pants when dining in the $5 food court in Lincoln Harbor. Be sure to take note if you’re ever in the area, unless you want to attract a lot of strange stares. Which we did, of course. One guy asked if we were a band, and if we were from Minnesota. I didn’t know our accents were so obvious, but apparently we just scream Minnesotan.

I grabbed a “Gyro” (the quotes should sufficiently express my feelings towards said sandwich), while Pete and Adam got fresh-made omelets with coffee and what at one point were hashed browns, but ended up as solid bricks of oil. Tasty, to be sure, although it melted gnarly holes in the styrofoam “plates” in which they were served. Curt decided not to eat, as he’d finished the second half of his Subway sandwich the night before and doesn’t really eat much in the morning.

Because it was so close (across the street), we checked out what appeared to be some sort of deli from the outside, as evidenced by the “boar’s head meats” sign. It turned out to be a decent convenient store, combined with a fresh-cut sandwich shop, not dissimilar to a place in Minnesota called Von Hanson’s Meats.

After checking out the shop, we went back to the hotel to relax and figure out what we were going to do about traveling to New York City on Friday. After much deliberation, we made the official decision to completely “wing it”. During the conversation, we got a call from Marc: apparently, we were being hooked up with continental breakfast tickets! We went downstairs right away to investigate this, and it turned out to be completely true. We were 1/3 of the way towards affording food! While we were down there, I went completely rogue and ruined our plans for “winging it” by asking the nice front desk guy what the hell we should do. Thank fucking crap I asked, because it turned out we needed to take 3 different forms of transportation just to get there!

With maps in hand, we went back to the deli and got some sandwiches, which turned out to be absolutely fantastic. The dudes running it are awesome, and actually knew about the studio we’ll be recording at (although inexplicably by a different name). I discovered and consumed a bottle of some sort of australian drink comprised entirely out of apple and mango juice, with no preservatives or water or anything. It was super-sweet, and super-sweet. Curt got some cranberry juice to help his stomach (he’s still feeling tired and shitty, likely from all of the less-than-stellar food we’ve been eating).

After the sandwich shop, I got another call from Marc in which we discussed possibly doing some ustream/justin.tv/whatever webstream messaging whateverthehell awesome sessions on the official No Label Needed site (metalinsider.com/nolabelneeded) which as of now is pretty dead. In addition, these blogs might end up on there as well! Hopefully they’re entertaining enough to actually interest people. Well, YOU people actually. Weird!

Stomachs full and evening approaching, Adam and Pete went in search of a better liquor store. A couple of hours later, they regaled me with an epic tale of going to four different stores in several miles, only to find bitter disappointment at each establishment. They eventually gave up and bought some not-great beers (”bitter disappointment” would be a quite fitting name for one of them, actually…) and headed back, getting lost a couple of times in the process. All-in-all, a 30-block-long string of dissatisfaction. Boourns, Weehawken, boourns. Not much of an area for fine spirits.

At the end of the night, after a brief crazy Britney Spears Dance Party courtesy of some random guy’s shared iTunes library (which we filmed, so stay tuned for that), I started a Flickr photo album for the Contest Trip (HERE!). We’ll try to be better getting more photos of things and people other than ourselves hence-forth, I promise. Or at least I’ll try. Buh.

Cheers,
-steve.h

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Hampton Inn. This was easily one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in, mostly because of the little extras like free tea and fruit, and the totally laid-back staff that occasionally made some sort of soup for the guests. They clearly enjoy their jobs and wanted our stay to be as nice as possible, and it showed!

The drive to New Jersey wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been, partially due to the time of day in which we drove, and partially due to the Liquid Metal station continuing to redeem itself with Opeth’s “Demon of the Fall”. We hit a bit of traffic close to New York City, but that quickly dissipated. Once we made it to the Sheraton (again, thanks to Jeebus, our GPS), we knew our time with the Dodge Grand Caravan was quickly coming to an end. We put our things in our rooms (which are on the top floor, apparently the “Club” floor (which means absolutely nothing as far as I can tell) and drove the car to the nearest Enterprise Rent-A-Car; around 15 minutes away. I ended up talking to my dad for a few minutes: he might stop by to check out the studio while on a business trip. Might be fun to show him what we’re up to and have him meet the band. After the phone call, the manager showed up and was nice enough to give us a ride back, with a quick tour of the various restaurants & bars in the area (which we’ll no doubt investigate for ourselves).

At this point, we started to investigate what this “Club Membership” meant as far as possible free food or other amenities, as we’re pretty much four broke dudes staying at a rather nice hotel. It turns out there are no free meals whatsoever, and the in-house bar/restaurant is understandably a bit steeper-priced than our usual fare (fast food & grocery store food). In addition, there’s no microwave anywhere to be seen, so I’m not entirely sure how we’ll survive, but there’s no way we’d let something like starvation get in the way of this impossible chance we’ve been given. It may turn out that the best advice the Shadows Fall guys gave us was that it’d be good to get used to ketchup soup.

Fortunately, we still have a little bit of cash left, and decided to look around for something cheap. What we found was a food court in a building across from the hotel, with multiple $5 meals and somewhat decent food. Unfortunately, the only thing open at the time was Subway, and they were temporarily out of bread. There was very nice dude working there who put some more dough in the oven for us, and we eventually got some decent subs out of the deal. It was a nice surprise to find Feta cheese and sweet peppers there, which made the somewhat SUB-standard food (ouch…) a lot more bearable.

To top off the day, we watched the sun set on the manhattan skyline (as seen from the hotel parking lot). It really is completely surreal to be here. It makes me wish I lived close enough to come here every once and a while, just to experience the overwhelming amount of humanity. I doubt there’s anywhere else like New York City.

Once the sun went down, we hung our in our room for a bit, then went to check out the bar/restaurant downstairs. Adam and I told ourselves we’d buy a beer regardless of price, and each ended up with a $7 Sam Adams. A good decision? Perhaps. I did end up with a beer and a good place to hang out and look at the night time skyline. Curt ended up grabbing a water (he’s throwing the idea of giving up drinking altogether. Possibly not a bad idea. Possibly the end of the band.

After the expensive cheap beers, Curt went upstairs to work on some bass lines, and Adam, Pete, and I went for a walk to check out the area a little bit and find a liquor store. We ended up finding a little overpriced, yet quaint hole-in-the-wall a few blocks from the hotel, and grabbed some coke and a little traveler of Jameson to split between us, just to help ease the travel tension that hadn’t fully worn off from the drive and previous flights. Pete grabbed a 6-pack of somethingorother as well.

Back at the hotel room, we poured a few and talked about working on the album. We still have a few lyrics and solos to write, as well as some potential singing parts. Not sure how that’ll go over, but we’re excited about it.

I’m not sure what I’ll have for Day 5, as it’s looking like a pretty empty day other than writing, but who knows? We’ll need to find somewhere other than Subway to eat. Also, we’re going to New York on Friday to meet up with Jamie, our PR person, which should be fun. We’ve talked with her on the phone and through email, so it’ll be nice to meet her in person. Last we talked, she was working on Dillinger Escape Plan stuff! I wonder if we’ll get lost in the subways?

Cheers,
-steve.h

*edit: forgot to mention, we saw literally 20+ McDonalds’ on the way down. So depressing…

This morning, I stumbled down to the breakfast area and had something called a “bagel topper” with Marc and Jason (SF Drummer). They were both fervently typing away on their iPhones, which I’m now even more jealous of, but still can’t afford one. I’ll be using my BB Curve until it officially dies.

After breakfast, Brian came down for a quick intro piece with him/Jason for the interview we had filmed yesterday, and then after a few hand shakes they took off. Both really good dudes! Once they left, there was still a quick intro/semi-interview with us to do with the MetalInjection guys, which went sort of well. We’d never really been interviewed on camera before, and I think we’re all a bit nervous and didn’t really know what to say. We discussed it a little bit afterwards, and will hopefully do a better job of presenting ourselves next time. Hopefully we didn’t come off as dumb as I think we might’ve, as this will be the first some people will see of us.

That pretty much concluded filming for the next several days, so the majority of the afternoon was spent working on a few solos and some lyrics. And eating some home-made clam chowder I found downstairs in the hotel. In retrospect, I wish I’d taken a nap, but we have a few “days off” coming up, so hopefully I can get some extra rest then. We still have a lot of work to do on the record, and have our pre-production tracks with us, so it’s definitely some welcome “get shit done” time.

Eventually, we had a couple of beers and made it down to the hot tub for a final hang-out session. Some little boy tried to hit on Curt a little bit. I think it was the thong/speedo. Later, that kid and his friends broke the pool. Their parents seemed un-phased.

Marc came and let us know Matt was down to hang out, so we drove over to his extremely nice house through a bunch of crazy winding roads and little mountains, and hung out with him and his girlfriend. He showed us his amazing guitar/amp collection, and let me try out the prototype for his signature model Ibanez. It was honestly one of the nicest guitars I’d ever played. It’s too bad the production model had some differences, but I’d imagine it might’ve been somewhat cost-prohibitive to have all of the features of the prototype. After that, we had a few beers. I had some sort of fruity beer that seemed OK at first, but gave me a stomach ache later on. Everyone else hated it, so I didn’t feel bad not finishing it. Curt and I ended up with some strings to try out, which is awesome. They’re coated with some sort of black stuff, which apparently doesn’t affect tone, but makes Curt feel sort of weird. He’ll like ‘em, I bet.

We ended up going out to a couple of bars, first “Opa Opa” which was actually a brewery as well. Adam had a good IPA, I had an extremely plain somethingorother (I’m not much of a connoisseur, I just like beer!). While we were there, Adam got a couple of amazing phone calls regarding possibly doing some out-of-state beer reviews for a reputable website. It’d be awesome if it came through, ’cause a job like that would be just perfect. Drink beer, write down what you think, get paid. Adam’s dream job, no doubt!

After Opa Opa, we went to some place called The Brass Cat in Easthampton. It was obvious that Matt was a regular when we walked in, and the bartender was quite nice. Adam and I tried a Guinness-type beer that had a weird wine-like nose to it, and a not-that-great taste. I couldn’t finish that one either. Basically, I had the worst beer ever tonight, but it didn’t even matter ’cause I had a few good discussions with Matt, and this trip is fun regardless of quality of beer. Curt, Pete, and Adam all got incredibly tanked and had animated discussions about band politics. I wish I’d filmed it, as it was pretty much the longest string of stupid crap and made-up bullshit I’ve heard to date. It was quite impressive, actually.

On the way home, the Liquid Metal station redeemed itself with Meshuggah’s “Bleed”, which we turned up and head-banged to quite fervently. Fortunately, Jeebus (our GPS unit) guided the way true, and we ended up back at the hotel safely. At this point, the guys were all slurring and stumbling pretty obviously, so I felt it’d be a good idea to film the beasts in their natural environment. Hopefully, I can upload the footage sooner than later. Let’s just say Curt ended up claiming the slaves were freed by molasses, and that he was Adam’s father. Unsurprisingly, he threw up a bunch soon after, and passed out.

I had some hot chocolate and the rest of the frozen food I’d purchased (again, no refrigerator at the hotel we’re driving to the next day), and went to sleep. Apparently, I snore so badly, Pete’ll be switching with Adam at the next hotel. I wish I didn’t snore…

Cheers,
-steve.h

Last night, I didn’t sleep very well for some reason. The temperature in the room was nice, the bed’s comfortable, and Pete doesn’t snore (unlike me, who sounds like a mixture between coffee percolating and a dying elephant), so I’m not sure what was up. I did have a strange dream in which I’d woken up at 6AM (when breakfast started) and there were dozens of people in line for the continental breakfast, and I didn’t get any.

Fortunately, that was all an elaborate scheme conjured up by my vengeful subconscious, whose world had been completely rocked by many an ill-advised late-evening acid-producing meal in the past 26 years. There was plenty of hotel food, including suspiciously small bacon and powdered eggs, and the room was completely empty with the exception of one nice lady who made me a waffle without even asking. Fortunately, stuff always tastes better when it’s free, and today’s breakfast was no exception. The free apples/oranges/bananas make me happy.

Pete woke up with some sort of cold sore. He’s not sure how it happened (my guess was the cigar last night, but he maintains that’s bullshit). We went and got some sort of medicine for it at WalMart, along with a sick pink XXXL girls’ tweetie bird shirt, some annoying sunglasses, and a pair of non-prescription nerd glasses that look awesome (pictures up on our Twitter of all of these things). After that, we hit up the grocery store (also WalMart) and got a fuck-ton of microwaveable delights; not knowing that the next hotel we’ll be at won’t have a microwave or fridge. Should be fun figuring that one out!

We came back to the hotel and had a conversation about potential album titles and imagery for the album, over a fantastic meal of microwaved pizza and noodles. We ended up with a title we can all stand behind, and emailed what we decided to the art company we’re going through.

Shortly thereafter, I got a call letting me know my check card may have been stolen, and have sent a new card to my address. I called them and got it sorted out, but as my roommate mentioned before I left: you should give your bank a call if you’re going on a trip. They assume it’s stolen and will give you a call letting you know there’s nothing you can do to save your poor personalized VISA you have in your pocket: it’ll be useless within the week. Fortunately, I’m half way across the country and don’t really have much of any way to get the new card over to me. Thanks Wells Fargo…

Later, we met Marc M., our metalinsider/syndicate contact. The first thing he did was hand me some oyster crackers and start talking up this chili someone had made downstairs (at the hotel). I ended up eating some, only to find out he hadn’t even eaten any himself. This is a tricky man, methinks! Good dude for sure.

After the chili, we all hopped in the car and drove 5-10 minutes to the photo studio for our meeting with Shadows Fall. The studio ended up being in a really cool huge abandoned-looking factory building. Humorously, there seemed to be a coffee shop inside (I can’t imagine who would come to this part of town looking for coffee, and deciding to check if this creepy fucking building had a coffee shop, but I’m not from here so who knows? We met up with the video crew, who it turns out are the guys from MetalInjection! Awesome guys, totally laid back and easy to work with. They followed us around for a few minutes as we were going back and forth in front of the building, trying to find the studio entrance, which it turned out was a block down and behind the building. Once we finally found it and walked up a few flights of stairs, we met the Shadows Fall dudes and had a good hour-and-a-half interview/meeting/hang-out session on camera, which I think went really well. They’ve definitely been around the block and know their shit: we learned a lot from them. There were talks of a potential barbecue later this week, we’ll see what happens.

After the interview, us, Marc, the MetalInjection guys, and a couple Shadows Fall dudes went out for chinese food. They had an insane-looking drink called The Scorpion Bowl, which ended up having significantly more bark than bite. Food was pretty good overall, and many good talks were had. Then one of the waitresses apparently temporarily stole a baby from a family sitting on the other side of the restaurant. She eventually brought it back, but I still can’t figure out what the hell could’ve been going through that waitress’s mind to just grab a kid and run. Very strange.

At the end of the night, we ended up having a great and lengthy discussion about metal and music in general with the MetalInjection dudes, and then a bit of a hang out session with Brian and his girlfriend in our hotel room. Overall, it was a great relaxing way to end a really surreal day. I hope it comes off as cool and fun on camera as it did in real life!

Cheers,
-steve.h