Parkway Drive have finished pre-production and tracking drums for their new record with producer Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Bad Religion) due out in summer. The band checked in with a studio update:
“We arrived in LA only a day before our scheduled start in the studio and pretty much didn’t get a chance for any hanging out or Californian sun… it was straight to work!”
“After finding the studio, which is only 4 blocks from our apartment and displays a spray painted number on the front wall and fortress styled gate, we were greeted by our new producer / fart partner in crime Joe Barresi. The first couple of days we just played through the songs, talked shit over and figured out all the tempos for the songs. Joe was pretty stoked with everything from the start and the songs remained 99% as we originally wrote them.”
“Tracking drums was next on the agenda and the boys (Gaz, Joe and hired assistant Mike) set up the kit and got some pretty fucking huge tones straight away. The next 6 days were like Groundhog Day… wake up at 11am, studio at 12pm, track drums, leave studio at 10pm, have a spa, cook dinner really badly, watch tv / internet, sleep at 3am, repeat. Winston spent a good 8 hours a day playing Call of Duty and Jeff and I just sat around playing guitar here and there, hanging out with Joe’s dog and farting into the specially set up (at arse level) mic for recording farts.”
“Joe’s technique is something we’re not really used to in the studio. He’s very into keeping things sounding natural, organic and playing the parts the way you normally would. He doesn’t like chopping things up or punching in too much as it sacrifices the natural flow and feel of the song. This is something we had heard about him and a big factor in us asking him to work with us on this record. It’s challenging but I think the end result will show in this record. We changed up snares and cymbals quite a bit throughout the drum tracking, certain songs felt better with certain tones and working this way added a whole new dimension to what we were doing. Gaz nailed all the drum parts. The drumming alone on this record shits all over anything we’ve ever done before.”
“Jeff and I went through about 20 amps and found a few rippers we’d never thought would be good. We get to delve deeper and start getting serious with tones tomorrow. Once we’ve found the ultimate setup we’ll start tracking guitars, bass and vocals over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned…”