Back to Basics

The chill of November in Rhode Island was harsh as the early winter cold had settled in before anyone was dreading future snow. The writing and demo work for the singles that the label requested was more arduous than I had hoped. Kiia and the band went through hundreds of riffs, beats, patterns, and arrangements that were quickly scorned and thrown in the trash. Some of it was great stuff, some of it not so much, but it was too early in the process for me to get involved; especially after giving them creative control in their contract.

I had the title of producer, but it was just for show. BTR’s longtime engineer, Dave, was handling the faders and the overall soundscape, so my only role in the room was to tell them if the take sounded up to their standards or not.

By the second week of November, they had completed the final demos for three new singles for their debut. I never asked which one they were planning on me performing on, it wasn’t that I wasn’t curious, but it was clear that they didn’t need me on any of them for it to sound good.

“So, out of the three songs, which one are we recording the master for first?” I asked Kiia and Nate as they sat in the control room.

“I think we should do Curbside Dreaming first, that one feels the most comfortable,” Nate responded with little hesitation.

“Okay, just so you know, I’m going to have Kiia record a scratch track for all three first, and then we’ll do drums for all three. After his gear is out of the room, we’ll go track by track from there,” I said, strictly business.

“Okay,” Kiia said, taking the hint and walking into the recording booth.

I was impressed by how easily she finished her job. It took less than thirty minutes and two takes to a click for each song. Even though these songs were written quickly, and this was their first time writing in the studio, she was dialed in as always.

Their drummer did his job as expected. His playing wasn’t flashy, it never had been. Every song had a simple backbone in less than two hours. I wanted to talk him through a few adjustments in his transitions, but I didn’t want to overstep. If Kiia and Nate didn’t have anything to say to him then this was the product they wanted.

I was surprised that their other guitarist, Hank, went into the room next. I expected Kiia to want to set the benchmark for the strings. Listening to his playing on all three songs, I understood why he went first.

From a high level view, Hank’s guitar parts were incredibly simple; stuff that a beginner could pick up in a matter of hours: basic chords and simple syncopations. In the mix, these lines were constructed to sync with drums and eventually the bass to build a solid foundation for Kiia’s more dynamic arrangements.

Nate stepped into the room and was done in a flash. One take for everything despite his lines and arrangements being far more complicated than anything Hank had played. I thought Rome was a better bassist live, but if this is the kind of thing Nate would be doing going forward, I’m glad that they made the switch.

Before Kiia went into the room to track her guitars, I took a second to listen through the tracks while the members of the band took a break. I didn’t say anything or take notes as I analysed their work.

“Dave, this is some great work on your end, you’ve got a lot of room to work with in the mix.”

“Yeah, I’m just not…really impressed with what we’ve got so far.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve heard so much from the label about how this was the biggest signing the label ever had, and people kept telling me how lucky I was to do these singles, but I just feel like what we have sounds pretty generic and uninspired,” he said, distracted with the mix, not even looking at me.

I could hear what he meant, but I thought he was being more grim than he needed. Sure, the foundation of the tracks wasn’t anything ground breaking, but there were a lot of bands that couldn’t even get to this point in the studio.

Kiia entered the recording booth with her guitar, a satin gray sE7 with a quilted maple top. She plugged into her amp modeler, and selected a different setup than what she had used for the scratch track. As soon as Dave gave her the light to start playing Curbside Dreaming, she went all in for it.

The take was fantastic, weaving in the melody and creating a dynamic soundscape on the foundation that the band created.

“Do that again, and change the sus4 chord at the end of the last chorus to a 5 add 7,” I said through the speaker in the room.

She jumped a bit on her stool, and was clearly peeved at my involvement.

“You said we have full creative,” she said back.

“Yeah, you do. Consider this friendly advice from a guy who’s sold a lot of records.”

Begrudgingly, she recorded a second take, and at the end of the final chorus swapped the chords as I requested. There was slightly more feel to this take, her irritation getting a little bit more swing in her playing.

“Yeah, that’s good. We can move to solos if you like it too,” I said.

“Yeah, that was better. The ending feels bigger with the swap…thanks,” she said, changing up her amp model again.

The process of tracking her guitars went like this for the next two tracks Not Your Queen and Invisible, with her getting more agreeable to my micro suggestions.

Finally, we reached the impasse of what song I was joining them for before we could record Kiia’s vocals.

“Well, I was always planning to have you on Invisible,” she said like I should have known that. “There’s room for you to add a Cy Rondeau-type guitar part, and with the way the chorus and bridge are arranged, we can harmonize the chorus while you can sing the bridge.”

“Okay,” I said, grabbing my guitar from the corner of the room, a white super strat.

“Do you already have something figured out?” She asked, shocked and excited.

“Not yet, but we’ll see where this goes.”

I sat in the room with the full musical mix. The guitars were slightly different from the demos, but I had memorized the vocal melody. I needed to play something that wouldn’t overpower the mix, but was sharp enough to move the needle.

I recorded my take with the precision of a madman in the stream of consciousness. I added third and fifth harmonies to Kiia’s chords in the verses, filling the space below where her voice was going. In the choruses, I settled above Hank’s chords with airy middle octave harmonies that would surrender to Kiia’s guitar and voice. In the bridge, I played sparingly, placing notes so their fading sustain fell into the empty spaces. For her solo, I played in left field, knowing where Nate and Hank were, placing every chord to help her guitar tell its story.

When I finished, the control room was silent. In my head, I thought it sounded fantastic, but I couldn’t get a read on anyone else. Maybe I was out of touch with what they wanted. Maybe I was nothing more than a talent scout these days; a lingering fossil of a dying era of music.

“Cy, that was great, come on out here,” Nate spoke over Dave in the room.

I wanted to talk to Kiia about the take, but she sped past me into the booth to record her vocals. Noticing that it was five o’clock, and we’d been at this for eight hours, she was committed to finishing the tracking in a single day.

Curbside Dreaming and Not Your Queen were virtually flawless and dynamic performances.

“You know, Cy, I’ve got to say, I’m understanding why you signed them more at this point. She really is something special…this reminds me of the old days,” Dave said, not realizing the weight of his words.

“Yeah…” I said under my breath, trying not to think about how it used to be.

“Okay, Invisible is up next,” he said through the console as if I wasn’t even there.

Kiia elevated her performance to a level I had never heard from her. I was entranced by the story she was weaving through her words and careful combination of pitch and breath support. This wasn’t a pop diva or gospel idol belting an iconic vocal melody, this was a rock icon from a past era enchanting a haunting performance that would live in the dreams of her fans.

“Do you have any feedback, Cy?” She asked, shaking and a little anxious in the booth.

I picked my jaw up from the floor.

Was this love?

I thought for a moment before speaking.

“No, that was the take,” I said, collecting myself to step into the booth myself.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said as we walked past each other.

My first few takes in the booth weren’t great, but that was to be expected. When someone records a vocal line like that, arranging and performing a harmony is that much harder. Eventually, I settled into a lower octave fourth to fill out the only part of the mix her voice wasn’t sitting in.

For the bridge, it took me a few minutes to understand how the melody needed to swirl as well as what message Kiia was trying to convey with her performance. Eventually, I settled into “Don’t leave me behind” being the heart of the song. I pushed out a low tenor performance with a lot of sustained vocals, something I hadn’t done since BTR's second album. I didn’t know if it was what they were looking for, but it sounded good enough on my end.

After my third take, I looked to the control room for validation. Nate, Hank, and Dave were dialed in the way they had been all day, but Kiia seemed to be somewhere else mentally. She was gazing through the glass, but was obviously looking straight through me.

“Yeah, man, that’s great. Thank you for putting so much heart on the track,” Nate said.

“Thanks. I’m just glad you liked it. I haven’t really recorded anything in a long time,” I said, the anxiety finally lifting.

I walked into the control room and sat on the couch next to Kiia. She still seemed in a trance. At first, I thought it was something I did, but I remembered that she was almost twelve hours into this session, and the stress of recording had taken its toll on her.

As I was spacing out, she leaned her head against my shoulder.

“It’s too bad I can’t sleep in the studio overnight,” she whined, not realizing what she was doing.

“Sorry, but at least you can sleep in your own bed tonight, since you only live fifteen minutes away,” I said.

“Yeah, but that’s no fun,” she continued to sulk. “Maybe I want to feel like I’m on vacation.”

“I can always book you a hotel room where I’m staying,” I played along.

“Maybe, I’d have to see yours first to see if I’d even like it,” her eyes widened as she realized what she was saying.

“I don’t know, I don’t think you’d ever want to be seen going into a room alone with me; that’s not exactly good for anyone’s reputation.”

She pouted for a second at the feeling of being rejected. “Yeah, but maybe it won’t always be like that.”

After a few more minutes sitting on the couch together, Nate stirred her from her near-nap like state to go home for the night. Maybe if we were alone I would have tried to hold her. I knew I shouldn’t want that, but I couldn’t help the ache that settled in my chest.