Day 2

Recording: Drums for “Part 3”
Warm-up: “Dark Saga” by Iced Earth

Tim

What better place to start than the end? We have extra time planned for today, so we wanted to spend it crafting the finale to the album. “Part 3” has a lot of room for drum fills and other epic awesomeness on Dave’s part.

Dave

I am an improvisatory drummer.  I really don’t like playing the same thing twice, and if you come to Burning Shadows shows and pay attention to me, watch ME, dammit!, you’ll discover that I rarely play the same fill in a given song from show to show.  This has a way of biting one in the ass during a studio session.  The end of “Part III” is very spacious, and I felt like it was the ideal setting for me to toss in a couple of solos.  Hopefully everyone will be astounded by my playing, but I feel like some of the spontaneity that is lost by having to compose fills compromised the passion.  Ah, well.  There’s always the live shows to make up for it!

The beginning of this track is in fact one of my favorite moments on the album.  I just focused on getting good tones out of my ride cymbal and snare drum.  The rim click is something I’m particularly proud of.  I even used new sticks for this!

Day 3

Recording: Drums for “Part 1”
Warm-up: “Valhalla” by Blind Guardian

Tim

Snow is falling. It only feels right to be recording black metal this evening. Instead, we are channeling the evil in the winter air to feel the oppression of the Hierarchy. So we find ourselves at the beginning of our tale.

It took Dave quite a few takes to build up the head of steam necessary to pound out an appropriate take for the beginning of the album. Perhaps it is due to the fact that he worked the graveyard shift last night. (Sadly, we have yet to be able to all quit our day jobs; perhaps that will change with the release of this album!) Eventually, Dave’s playing came to the point where within the first few seconds of the start of the track, you could swear a warhammer (or Spencehammer in this case) has just smashed your face in. In a power metal way, not a death metal way.

Unfortunately, however, things just would not gel. Instead of tracking, attention was switched to mixing the drums for “Part 3”, which is much less exciting than tracking, I must admit.

Dave

Blind Guardian has a song called “And Then There Was Silence.”  It’s a great one.  You should go listen to it.  The last line of the song pretty much sums up my feelings about today.