I was not in Passion Pit when this record began. Michael did the first Passion Pit EP alone and then attempted to do the same with the full-length. I joined the band while he was in Bedstuy doing the first version of this album. He came back to Boston and we rehearsed for a couple days and then the Piano’s residency in New York started. Before we knew it, we had the opportunity to redo the album and I have been here in Manhattan with Michael since we started in November.
Studio recordings I have worked on in the past were done in the more frugal and common style of coming into the studio with the songs rehearsed and tracking with as few takes as possible. Usually the idea has been to record the entire band and vocals live all in one take and only sometimes we were lucky to have time to track each instrument individually. This record could not be farther from that. Having producer Chris Zane and assistant Alex Aldi working with us everyday is unreal to begin with, let alone sitting in Philip Glass’ old Tribeca studio packed full of gear I never thought I would see in person. Having Chris and Alex know how to juice every last drop of brilliance from this gear into our sound has been a godsend. I don’t understand how we got so lucky!

Not only did we track almost every 4 bars separately, we wrote most of it in the studio. As an electronic producer, that’s how I do it when I’m alone in my bedroom, but never with a band, never with an expensive studio or producer. But, I don’t think we have wasted a penny. Maybe I’ve bought a couple beers I did not need, but Mike and I share a bed here in New York City, and sometimes I need a little coaxing to snuggle up. I mean here we are in early January and we have maybe 3 songs left to put vocals on, and with only mixing and mastering to come after that, our job is pretty much done. At that rate we could put out 4 full lengths a year. I’ve been in bands that play songs for years before they make it to tape. Watching Mike and Chris work like this has not only been inspiring but made me realize how lazy I am. The things we wanted to work on while making this record were the level of production, mixing, recording, and songwriting as well as balance of quantity and quality. For me, as well as everyone else, what was important was the sound design of the synthesized voices within the band and on the recordings. It is one thing to dig through Moog patches and come up with something that sounds like a “warm vintage analog synth!” there’s a place for that but not everywhere. I think we all had a lot of fun exploring new and old hardware and software while recording this and that helped us achieve what we were hoping for sonically coming into this, which is something fresh.

Aside from the sound of Mike’s voice and the heavy layered synths, the moods are similar to the EP, but if I were the random listener , I think it would feel like I was going from the Fung Wah Bus to having a chauffeur driving me around in a Prius; it’s the same trip but a lot more efficient. From the beginning, joining this band has been the challenge I always dreamed of and dreaded. Mixing synths and guitars and live drums and samples and drum machines to make a tight android of a band has been a goal of mine since middle school. In August I stepped into Passion Pit and the parts were all there. For the first time I play live to a click and half my responsibility as a drummer is gone so I can concentrate on other elements of the songs. But that was the old EP, here in a few days, once we are comfortable with structure and parts of the final songs, I head back to Boston to rehearse the band to get ready for when Mike gets back from monitoring the mixing process and we have maybe 4 or 5 days to get ready for our first headlining tour. I can’t wait to get out of New York…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 13:06. It is filed under In The Studio With.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.