Greetings from Boston, MA (for another day or two). As I mentioned last week, the long, slow process of recording my 4th album, Albatross has officially begun. As many of you know, the wife-to-be and I are moving again, this time Oklahoma City. Before I blew town, I wanted to set the recording process in motion with one of my good friends (and all-time favorite drummers), Patrick Hanlin. Pat is a talented multi-instrumentalist originally hailing from Indiana who’s been entrenched in the Boston music scene for some time now.
He’s probably best known as the drummer of Kid:nap:kin, a jaw-dropping power trio of aggro-prog-metal awesomeness (click HERE if you think I’m lying), but he’s also played as a hired gun in a number of other bands, rocked the VANS Warp Tour, and develops/produces local talent.
I first met him in 2003, tried unsuccessfully to recruit him to be the drummer in the Neon Calm back in 2005, and have been able to share the stage with him many times. He even appeared as the Dead Messengers drummer in the music video for “I Can’t Fix It”. Nevertheless, I’ve never had him record on any of my material until now.
At Pat’s suggestion, we spent two Fridays in a row at the studio of Producer/Engineer extraordinaire Scott Riebling. Scott first found fame as the bassist for the band Letters to Cleo, and has since become a go-to guy for great sounding records. He’s worked with a ton of artists (Butch Walker, Metro Station, the Von Bondies, Fall Out Boy, Dropkick Murphys and more) and produced one of my favorite local Boston records of all time, A Girl’s Name Here by Rocketscience.
But enough about all that. These are two awesome guys and they’ve helped insure that my fourth album will be awesome as well. Pat also added hand percussion and accordion parts. And Scott also made us homemade pizza. So the tracks we’ve begun so far:
1. If I Stop Singing, Check My Pulse
2. Still Running
3. The Long List of Names
4. The Wedding Party
5. No Show Tonight
6. That’s Mine, This is Yours
7. You’ll Never Work in This Town Again
8. Tender Venom
9. Elizabeth Murphy & the Albatross
10. The Road Home
More updates soon.