it’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything…

four days of mixing left and then another couple of months before the record comes out. we were sitting around the other night at bible study reliving the insanity that we swam through to get to this point.

-started “official” writing in january, member status became unstable

-canceled a march tour because of the status problems

-lost our footing in february with an unexpected lineup change

-made plans to fill the void with a studio drummer and held auditions

-brought in someone and sent them home within 24 hours, they later went on to slander us on the internet

-started talking to our friend jordan, made a plan

-the plan fell apart when jordan’s schedule became an issue, talks of pushing the studio back several months came up, all kinds of differing thoughts and ideas within the group

-made an insane swiss cheese plan that was terrifying and went for it with nothing but blind faith

and then here we are, months later, listening to the best Showbread album ever made. God is good.

6 days left…

we’re nearing the finish line of tracking with 6 days left before we’ll begin the mixing process.the amount of days we’ve spent tracking has always been pretty varied:

Life, Kisses…: 4 days

No Sir, Nihilism…: 18 days

Age Of Reptiles: 5 weeks

Anorexia Nervosa: 5 1/2 weeks

The Fear Of God: 15 days

we haven’t ever really needed the large amounts of time we’ve spent on some of our records. this time around is the shortest ever tracking period since Life, Kisses… and it’s worked out amazingly. the four of us plus Jordan worked SO well together that we just cruised through everything with amazing ideas and awesome takes…

borrowing from the “In Utero” recording technique, we recorded the entire band live and did minimal overdubs unless we deemed them necessary. and we’re finally making a record we’ve been wanting to make for years.

at this point we’ve only vocals left to track and we’re feeling great. i can’t wait to hear the finished product.

pictures

day five.

we finished drums on thursday. patrick took jordan to the airport in sacramento before we became entrenched in a HUGE ticket mess with continental airlines. jordan finally got out of sacramento at 6am.

his drumming on the record is awesome. he did us a tremendous favor by dropping everything to come play on our album and hang out with us. thanks a lot Tyler Read for letting us borrow your drummer. he rules.

friday was our day off so we drove to medford to see Wolverine. ran into some showbread fans and saw a kid walk by with a showbread shirt… that was pretty cool. everyone really liked the movie for the most part, but of course we were saddened to see Deadpool (one of mine and patrick’s favorite Marvel characters) treated so poorly. at least we got to enjoy him as Wade Wilson. i strongly recommend everyone go see Wolverine as soon as possible so we can get a sequel and a Deadpool spin-off.

today we’re tracking some guitars. we ended up keeping a great deal of live takes from the guitars so that the record has more of a raw, live energy. i’ve wanted to make a record with this sonic vibe since before Age Of Reptiles so it’s really exciting to hear it coming out. never before have all of my favorite elements been combined on our records this way.

showbread loves calzones

showbread has had a great couple of days. we had some calzones that are arguably the best out there. we’ve finished tracking drums and we watched a metallica documentary. right now i’m kind of hungry but all is well because tomorrow wolverine comes out. we’re a little concerned about the whole deadpool thing. jordan is leaving tonight. he is flying home to work on his band darktober. he is very passionate about it and we are very excited to hear the finished product. i reckon i’ll eat a sandwich.

-patrick

Day 2

On the second day of recording my Showbread gave to me…  5 new live tracks recorded!  The work is going great.  Patrick, Jordan, and I woke up around 9:30 and started the day with a good workout.  We all got together for a little bible study and prayer time before we started tracking.  We started tracking shortly after and returned to the point where we had left off last night.  It only took three takes to get what we wanted out of NMA.  I really never thought that we would be able to record live in this way.  Everything that is being recorded in these live tracks has the chance to make it to the final mix.  Now, I know some of you out there might be thinking of some records that where recorded “live” and they sound very much that…  LIVE.  This recording process is slightly different not to say that is something new…  it’s just new for us.  These songs are truly full of energy and rawness.  I can’t wait to hear what these songs will sound like in a week after overdubs and more layers get recorded.  We are getting master takes in about 4 passes through each song.  Jordan truly is a Monster! – mike -

studio day one

we started by picking out drums and cymbals from studio A. Radiostar is spread out across several studios and we’re tracking The Fear Of God in “studio C”, where we tracked a lot of Age Of Reptiles. I’m not sure which drums we’re using, Sylvia and Jordan decided on them and they sound awesome. i’ll have to ask them what we’re using… the snare in particular is extra raw.

spent a long time setting up microphones and getting the tracking room set up for the band to be able to play live… that way the drummer gets a better “live” performance and we can keep anything cool that happens during scratch tracks. we do all our records this way except AN (and that wasn’t our choice…)

after some wiring dillemas, we got all the click tracks set up and some demo performances i did of the synths so that we can have them in our headphones while we play live and i can focus on singing. got some steve albini drum sounds and a very edgey “non-polished” sound set-up, which has been the Showbread dream for a long time, and now here we are.

did one take of the second song on the record and heard Sylvia screaming from the control room… she ran into the tracking area and told us that this is by far the best we’ve ever sounded. this coming from the woman who produced and recorded Age Of Reptiles and No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical and only after one performance. exciting.

did a few more passes of the song but it got late, so we called it a night. things start up again at noon.

-josh dies

warm up your ears.

before you hear The Fear Of God, warm up your ears with these records that influenced the writing process in some way, shape or form. put elements from each of these in a blender, add the raw rock energy and intensity, and you’ll be in a similar place we were when we started writing.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

we started “planning” this record over a year ago. we started really planning things at the end of 2008. we started to make official rehearsal schedules concrete plans a few weeks ago, around the same time everything started to go wrong.

thus far, evey showbread writing and recording experience is surrounded by a certain level of chaos and uncertainty. murphy is mostly right and everything that can go wrong, in some way or another, kind of does… but then, at the last moment, things go right.

we just might be in the doorway of the “things going right” stage with The Fear Of God after weeks of languishing in the “things going wrong” desert. possibly trials set in place to better us, possibly road blocks set up to stop us, possibly what Soloman wrote about in Ecclesiastes… cruel random chance.

weeks away from the studio and the production of what is groomed to be my favorite Showbread record.

-j. dies

(late) return of korg.

Since Anorexia Nervosa had such an electronic foundation, most of the keyboard parts came first in the writing process. We’d begin with these layers of drum machines, samples and synthesizers and then start building the “organic” stuff on top of all this throbbing, beeping mayhem.

That was a big change for us, being a band that 9 times out of 10, wrote the synth parts after the fact (with the exception of a few songs like “And The Smokers…”)

The Fear Of God returns us to the classic Showbread formula, seeing how at this point synth parts exist on about 2 demos. Writing for AN brought out a multitude of MIDI instruments and software synths. The Fear Of God brings back the ever-faithful Korg MS-2000. The only synth Showbread uses live, she’s carried us through every record so far.

I think that the first wave of the writing process is coming to an end. There might be one more in my head but rather than force it, i’ll see if it surfaces after rehearsal begins and the creative juices began flowing. Tonight, I’ll pick up the ms-2000 and begin the somewhat daunting (but fun) process of writing the synth parts.

Rehearsal begins Wednesday.