The Overture
Spencehammer
When I set out to write an orchestral introduction to the album, I had a clear idea of whom I wanted to rip-off. Týr’s introduction to Ragnarok is a beautiful synthesis of the many melodic themes on that album. Since Greg [the main songwriter of the rest of the album] had provided me with a wealth of melody with which to work, I had ample material for variation.
Often when I’m at work, or during a boring conversation, I’ll be listening to music in my head. Sometimes, I’ll run across some gaps in my memory, so I’ll just make up an appropriate part to go in place of that which I’ve forgotten. Other times, I’ll just add stuff in. This is essentially what I did during the process of writing “Hymn To Sathanas” (which I always think of in my head as “Intro A Sathanas”); I took main thematic elements from each part of the album plus variations on what I thought those themes were (it gets loud at practice and I can’t always hear right), and wove them together into an epic, 4 minute overture.
So I have this sheet music, all composed and ready to go, but an orchestra of around 60 players is hard to throw together. This is where Tim [Regan, Burning Shadows guitarist and recording engineer] and Kyle [Paradis, who mixed the album] step in to save the day. Through exhaustive (insert technical something) and using (wires? Engineers?) they came up with appropriately epic patches for the Savage Philharmonic’s* debut performance.
As a drummer, I’ve always dreamed of making myself obsolete by recording samples of all my percussion equipment so that I can just synthesize it and get replaced by RVG’s drummer [RVG is a drummerless zombie metal band]. The sad truth is that this will never happen because 1. I’m far too lazy and 2. MIDI percussion sounds cheesy. So, to avoid cheesing up “Hymn To Sathanas”, I decided that we needed live percussion (or at least live unpitched percussion…except for the gong.) Gregory “Paukenfaust” Mueller stepped in and recorded a phenomenal bass drum part, as well as other section instruments. I handled snare drum and, of course, triangle. Kirk, we’ll get you on the next one.
Finally, once all the recording and MIDI selection and Kyle’s tireless mixing efforts were complete, we sat down to play “Hymn To Sathanas” directly into “A Thousand Lies”, as is intended…and realized that it was in the wrong key by a half-step. So, Tim proudly donned the Hero’s Headphones, tweaked a bunch of stuff that I don’t understand and sent it off to Kyle for yet another mix. Kyle equipped himself, I can only imagine, with the Mace of Mixing and beat the tune into submission. So now, over a year after beginning recording sessions on this album, the music is at long last mixed and ready for mastering. I can happily admit that the delay will be well worth it in the end.