When it came time to record our first demos, on the advice of Brad West from Heartland/ex-They Will Repent, I sought out Griffin Landa who owns and operates The Establishment Recording Studios. I’d known of Griffin with his prior time playing in Too Pure to Die, and currently Shut In (also featuring one of my favorite vocalists, Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain) and IVA, but I’d never actually met him. I had no idea what kind of a person he was or how he ran things.
Admittedly, I am not the greatest guitar player, not by a long shot. Other than our drummer, I’m probably the least qualified to even be holding a guitar in the band (both my vocalist and bassist actually went to school to learn and play classical guitar), but I had at least learned my way around the instrument enough to know what I was doing.
So, here we were, going to recording with a guy who has toured across the States (and most likely outside of the U.S.), produced and engineered several local and regional bands and I had to play in front of him, a guy who has seen the best of the best play their instruments. To a click. The click is the mortal enemy of any person who can’t count, and I cannot. The running joke is that when I bring a riff to rehearsal, I’m the one who asks everyone else what time signature it’s in. Fortunately for us, myself especially, Griffin is one of the easiest going people you’ll ever meet. Never a harsh or condescending word left his mouth during the initial recording sessions for the first three songs. It had been such a positive experience we knew he was definitely the guy to do our first official release.
Matthew Burkett of Panthallasa (Photo by Bigfoot Diaries) |
We had been jamming a song since our first rehearsals as a full band that was far different from anything else we were doing, it had more in common with Nine Inch Nails or Massive Attack than it did the obvious Botch or Deftones worshiping the other songs had, but when we first started playing it we weren’t entirely sure it would actually be recorded in a studio. It started randomly enough one rehearsal, I had been messing around with electronic drum software on my laptop that I was running through a bass amp and our vocalist, Matt, started playing these two chords on his guitar with the reverb on his amp cranked all the way up. It was an extremely haunting melody. After Joe, our other guitarist, added his part and the live drums came in, I switched over to an organ snyth using the same software to avoid having too much percussive sounds going on and muddying up the tune. The first few runs of the song stretched out to about 10 minutes oddly enough…it was just so hypnotic and catchy.
Joe Curry of Panthallasa (Photo by Bigfoot Diaries) |
When the song is played live, the electronic drum intro that I play is completely live. I should probably explain: I’m physically pressing down on the pad to trigger the sounds for each and every bar of the phrase instead of looping them or playing a pre-recorded sample. It’s kind of a backwards approach, but every time I’ve tried looping it or triggering a sample, something gets lost in the translation of the part.
I can’t comment on the lyrics because I didn’t write them, that credit would have to go to Joe. I do know they are probably the most personal lyrics you’ll find in a Panthallasa song. I’ve always tried to stay away from overtly personal lyrics when I write, but sincerely admire people who write them and make them work. Most of Matt’s vocal melody was already in place during the first jam sessions for the track, including the “GO!” to signify the guitar break.
Daniel Powell of Panthallasa (Photo by Bigfoot Diaries) |
- Text written by Grant Peter
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