Lowtalker are in the studio recording a brand new EP for their No Sleep Records debut, and PropertyOfZack is happy to have the band back for their second Behind The Booth feature. The band finished tracking their six songs in five days, so heck out their progress in the studio below!

From Matt Keil:

So we are now more than halfway through the recording process but there’s a lot left to do. Tracking vocals is a really tedious process. I started tracking one of my songs “Like Minnows” Wednesday morning. We had done a lof of writing and demoing some of the vocals earlier so luckily there wasn’t much writing to be done in the studio. So we took turns singing lines and then re-singing them, over and over again. Then when you have a good enough take of the lead vocal, you double that, do some mixing, and then work on some harmonies. Stu sang a couple extra parts on that song as well and it started to build up pretty nicely. 

Unfortunately Brian had to go to Eau Claire that afternoon to play a show with his other band Laarks, so Wednesday was cut short. To give you some perspective and context, Comeback Kid was leaving for tour early Saturday morning, so whatever didn’t get done that week simply wasn’t going on the record. We worked long, looong days Thursday and Friday singing and adding the little extras that make a song what it is. It’s really easy to get discouraged early on in the process because a song doesn’t sound like what you pictured right away. It takes a lot of experimenting and adding/subtracting parts. Thursday night I had another show to go play myself, so Casey and Stu recorded some extra guitar parts using some of the different amps we talked about before. 

Friday morning we went over all the ideas they had hammered out the night before. There’s some really subtle stuff that I hope has the right effect when people take a closer listen. It really helped take the songs in the direction we imagined when we started writing them. The rest of the day was devoted to singing. Finally later in the night we were wrapped up with actually tracking. This was lucky because Stu and I were so worn out from singing we didn’t even sound like ourselves anymore. Lesson learned: tracking 6 songs in 5 days is a pain in the ass. 

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Lowtalker are one of No Sleep Records’ new signings, and the band is currently in the studio recording a new EP that is due out this summer. The band is comprised of members from Living With Lions and Comeback Kid, so everyone should be incredibly excited for their next release. Matt Keil was kind enough to write-up a Behind The Booth feature for PropertyOfZack, so check out their progress in the studio and come back soon for a second update!

From Matt Keil:

Stu flew in on Friday night, and less than an hour later we were in Whistler’s Den Studios (also known as our drummer and engineer Brian’s house)  to finish writing for the new EP. We do the majority of our writing by sending each other demos for months bouncing ideas back and forth, but the songs don’t really become songs until we’re all in the same room. So we spent the weekend fine tuning things, trying different arrangements and what not until we felt comfortable. Saturday we drank beer in our friend’s garage all day so really it was about 60% of the weekend we spent writing I guess. Now that I think about it. 

Monday morning we all got together at Waterbury Studios in Minneapolis to track the drums. On our last record (People Worry About Everything) we recorded the drums at a studio in Milwaukee and everything else at Stu’s house, and that worked out pretty well, so here we are again. Waterbury is an amazing studio with a lot of rooms and equipment. I really wish we could do everything there but it’s really really expensive. Who knew? The drums get knocked out in about 6 hours and we run out the door. Later that night Stu and I built a patio set in my back yard. It features four comfortable chairs and comes with an umbrella. 

So now it’s Tuesday morning and it’s time for amps. We set up to do the bass tracks with a couple different options in mind. We ended up blending a direct line with a vintage Ampeg bass combo that blah blah blah sounded really cool and I can’t wait for you to hear it. We are putting conscious effort into making this record sound more like we picture our band sounding, and less “plug in, sounds good enough” recording. This took the first half of the day and then we started getting guitar sounds. 

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