Days 4/5/6/7 - vocals, solos and mixing (bass and
drums).
The second part of the recordings and the mixing is scheduled to be
done at the other Temple Of Noise studios, run by none but Christian
Ice, a guy who's very popular in Rome for being one of the minds
behind Prophilax
and also for producing a lot of metal bands.
Rob and Mimmo are the first to arrive, early, so
they stopped at a bar to enjoy a coffee and fix some lyrics.
First thing to do for Mimmo was to warm up his
voice, so Christian played Jonna Wants Two Beers a couple of times
and went to put some soothing cream on his face because he "looked
too bad". When he returned, he was looking like he had a black metal
face painting! Enjoy all these things in this video!
Mimmo is now ready to start!
Enjoy the mess on Christian's desk - he's as good as
untidy!
Christian saved four mistakes Mimmo did when he was singing the
third line of Jonna Wants Two Beers, and used them to fill a whole
verse. The result, as usual, is hilarious!
Later, Jonna and Matt joined us. Matt spent the
night before at a Small Jackets gig and was dressed in newly bought
merchandise!
Jonna carefully listening
Getting tired after hours and hours of singing
and/or listening
It took two days to complete Mimmo's vocal sessions plus backing
vocals, sung by all of the members of the band, and Christian Ice
too. Mimmo sung the vocal harmonies when there are just two voices
while Jonna, Matt, Rob and Christian sung on the big choirs. Plus,
Jonna and Matt sung on some parts in which we needed a lower harmony,
and Christian added a very James Hetfieldish "objection overruled!"
on Piracy - we needed an aggressive voice for the judge's speech on
the song.
Then it was about time for guitar solos. Surprisingly, Jonna chose
his Gretsch one again - he had previously announced he'd use his
Gibson Explorer - and much more surprisingly he used a Line 6 head,
through his beloved Marshall JCM9000 cab. He was a bit ashamed to
reveal he used a lousy Line 6, as you can see from this pic!
But actually Jonna's secret weapon was his Cradle Of Filth t-shirt,
bouth not because he likes the band, but rather because he loves the
naked girl on it!
Rob and Matt photographing each other.
Matt doing the human capo for some licks on Piracy! What's a
human capo ? Find it out
here!
A small clip (sorry, it's a bit dark) featuring Jonna recording the
solo for Jonna Wants Two Beers (it was the first take and that's
exactly what you hear on the song!) and the intro lick for Piracy,
with Matt as a human capo.
Mimmo and Jonna: so tender!
Mimmo God goes emo
We spent the rest of the days starting the mixing phase... beers, cigarettes and speakers: what else ?
Mixing a song means listen to it a billion times, while christian
applies slight corrections to different channels, effects and tracks,
and after every correction you listen to it through different
speakers. A couple of hours later we were completely fed up of House
Of Rock, but we had a marvellous sound for bass and drums!
- Listen to the premix here
(opens a pop-up window) -
And here's the usual video suming up what we did - and how we liked
doing it!
