Tracking is Finished!!

Yesterday was the last day of recording for the new album. It's pretty weird. I don't think it's hit me yet. I'm sitting on the couch in my living room drinking a cup of coffee, watching the Manchester United-Middlesboro game on mute and listening to Neutral Milk Hotel, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do next. I'm sure thing are about to get so busy for us that this feeling of nothingness wont last very long. The last 4 months of my life has been writing and recording this record. I guess, I need to know the meaning of my life for the next 4 months now.

We practiced last night after we left the studio and we're practicing again today. We leave for tour tomorrow so that should be awsome. I gotta do m laundry and pack eventually. We're leaving for a short 9 day tour in the morning. I've been so busy with the record for so long that I haven't gotten to spend any time with my friends so this tour will be a good opportunity to hang out with my buddies in Bombers, who have been my best friends since elementary school. Through all the things I've been through, people I've met, places I've seen etc.., I've kept the same friends since I was a little kid. I think that's had alot of effect on the person I've become. I love my friends. I'm excited to spend this tour with them.

So this is supposed to be the studio journal, so I'll stop rambling and talk about the studio. I will try my best to describe what to expect from this album....

First off, I want to assure anyone who may have been concerned and may be worried about what I say, I would not call this record "experimental" and I would definitely not say that we have strayed far from what we and our fans have always loved about Bayside. While there are of course, differences and progressions, everyone can rest assured that it's not a crazy left turn that alot of bands seem to take after tasting alittle success. So with that said, there are full orchestras on this record, violins, violas, cellos, trumpets, saxophones, xylophones, clavs, tubas, clarinets, oboes, double basses and timpanis. There are also accordions, pianos and marching drums.  I have always been very into musicals. I wanted to see what happened when we took Bayside and "the Walking Wounded" concept and  made a musical out of it. There are certain writing techniques that are used in writing songs for musicals and plays that usually aren't used in rock music or pop music. Extreme highs and lows, advanced instrumentation, reprises and things like that. I spent alot of time listening to some of my favorite musicals like Annie, Fiddler on the Roof, Phantom of the Opera, Grease, Grease II, Cabaret, Wizard of Oz as well as songwriter/composers/singers like Leonard Bernstein, Judy Garland, Neil Sedaka etc..I would listen to them and study what they were doing. Even taking notes sometimes. I figured out what was making that stuff sound the way it did and I applied it to my own writing.

So in short, if you listen to this and want to listen deeply and read into it, there are so many things happening on this record and so many doors and layers, however, if you don't want to, it's still sounds like Bayside. I can't imagine someone listening to this and asking "what the hell were they thinking". I think we've succeeded in making an album that will appeal to people who are looking for different things from music.

Lyrically, this is the next progression in the Bayside story. Sirens and is very depressing with no sign of light anywhere. Self Titled was about founding out what I was depressed and wh my life was going the way it was. Looking for the light, so to speak. The Walking Wounded is an album about surviving. It's about survivors of life, of depression, lost love, the music scene and anything else. This is about finally finding the light. It's about going from the depths of a black whole and wanting to make things better and ultimately getting there. I think the only thing you wont get out of our new album is any pessimism. If you're content being unhappy and want to listen to someone who hates thier life and doesn't want to do anything about it, I can see the Walking Wounded as being a disappointment.

On February 6th, everyone can decide for themselves though. I just hope that people are listening with open ears and not just judging based on what they think it's supposed to be. I would hate to think that people wouldn't like our album because we tried to be better at what we do, worked to hard on it or were too optimistic about bad situations.

Recording - Day...almost done

It's saturday at about 6pm in new york. We have the weekend off from the studio. I must say, today is probably the best day off ever. I woke up at like noon, which is the latest I've slept since starting the record. Manchester United won and are in a pretty comfortable first place in the Premiership so far, which is amazing. I've been watching different Star Wars movies for 6 hours, since Cinemax is playing them all. My fiance had the day off also so we got to hang out and watch Star Wars and eat olives. To top it all off, my good buddies in Bombers are playing with one of my favorite bands, the Living End, tonight in Long Island, so I'll be off to that in a little bit. Couldn't ask for a better day off

In bayside news, we will finish tracking the album on wednsday, just in time for thanksgiving. I can't believe we're almost done. We also just got word yesterday that Alternative Press and it's readers have names us 2006's Most Underated Band in thier 2006 poll, and also, one of the most anticpated releases of 2007.

It's a good day

Recording - Day...a bunch

Today is the last day of guitars!! We're so stoked. Today, Jack is gonna finish up like 1 last solo, a couple of clean parts and then that will be that. We'll probably get started on vocals at some point tonight. The Walking Wounded is almost a wrap. Even though it's 10am and i only slept for 4 hours, I'm so excited to almost be done with this record. My morning cigarette and coffee tastes a little better today, I can tell you that much.

I had a very productive weekend off. I've been finished with the lyrics for about 8 out of the 12 songs on the album for some time now, but there have been these 4 that I've been totally stumped on. Over the weekend i finished 2 so now I only have 2 more to finish up this week before I record them next week. 1 of them is about how  I feel about the current state of music and the scene. One line is "They've got spindles spinning bad songs into gold". so that should give you a pretty good idea of what that ones all about. The other is about an old friend. It's one of those friends that you know is bad for you, but you can't let go of. One who is going to keep getting you in trouble and bringing you down. And also about how we all mask our depression with anger. It's a pretty commen thing. I've always had a problem with that. I always come off angry. You can ask anyone that knows me. I have a tone in my voice that makes me, as I'm told,  unapproachable and intimadating. Meanwhille, I'm the intimadated one most of the time. I guess it's an Italian/Queens thing. You never show weakness. It's easier to be mad. You ever notice that yelling or being insulting is so stress relieving?

I watched "My Date With Drew" twice over the weekend also. once with my fiance and once with my buddy Sean from Bombers. I love that Documentary. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It's so fucking inspiring. It almost brought tears to my eyes at some points. It reminds me so much of my own struggle for success. Anyone who has ever had a goal that seemed unattainable or that everyone tried to convince you was a waste of time can relate to this movie. It's about so much more then trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore in 30 days, it's about dedication and a dream. It's alot more about achieving his goal and making a good film. I'm glad things worked out for that dude, he diserved it.

Kenny from the Starting Line will be in the studio with us at some point this week or next to lay down some totally exciting guest vocals on the album. I've always liked the Starting Line, even though they've kind of came up out of a scene I have little respect for, they were always the band I could listen to and know they were legit. Those dudes write good tunes and they know how to play thier instruments. It's totally an honor that Kenny was willing to come in. We're trying to lock down our tradition Punchline/Bayside connection. It wouldn't be a Bayside record without Steve and it wouldn't be a Punchline record without me. We like to think we complete eachother. hahaha.

Recording - Day 9ish

Drum tracks are in the books. We recorded drums to 12 songs, as well as 2 interludes and an acoustic track. It's gonna be great. I'm so happy with the way the drums came out. Chris did a great job. We start tracking bass tomorrow morning in Queens. Since it's out first day in this new studio, we'll probably spend most of tomorrow moving our shit in and setting everything up, but we're hoping to get at least a song or 2 done tomorrow.

We wrote a last minute song a day or 2 before starting drums called "I'm Still Alive". We're so glad we got that last bit of writting out of us before it was too late because the song is amazing. I'm so glad we'll have it in time to make the album. It's funny how creativity works. You can spend 4 months working on a song, or 4 months working on writting 400 songs, but somehow you come up with something in 15 minutes when you weren't even try it and like it more then anything you spend months on. Creativity is a weird thing. I guess the only way to make a truly good piece of art is to be open to ideas all day everyday. You can't sit down and say "i'm gonna write now" or "i'm gonna paint now" or "i'll work on it when i have a minute". you never know when something brilliant is going to hit. And an evern more valuable lesson is to give every idea a chance. So many times in the writting of this record, I wrote something and recorded it and thinking about it quickly pushed it to the side but I would listen to that thing the next morning and not beleive that it came out of me and I hadn't noticed. It makes me wonder what Beethoven or Picaso thought of thier own work. Was it a hobby that everyone else saw as a masterpiece but them? Was it just a decent idea that they thought they should get a few opinions on? Did they spend months or years conceptualizing something before they set out to create it, or did it hit them suddenly? It's a weird thing, creativity.

Have you ever noticed that no one is creeped out by ladybugs? Whille we were upstate in the country working at the studio there, we were living in a farmhouse. All of our bedrooms were totally infested by ladybugs. They weren't like crawling on us or in the bed, but you layed in bed and looked up, and the ceiling would have like 50 ladybugs hanging on it. If that were pretty much any other kind of bug, there is no way anyone would sleep in that room but for some reason, no one had a problem with ladybugs hovering over them in thier sleep. I didn't even think twice about it actually. Kind of a strange phenomenon those ladybugs. I guess it's because when you're kids and what not, ladybugs are always portrayed with big smiles and big pretty eyelashes. Very non offensive for the most part. Down right friendly. I guess it's the sub-consious equivilent to having a big purple dinosaur infestation as opposed to a scary T-Rex with big teeth problem. It's interesting how the way things are portrayed to us on tv when we're kids and even know affect the way we look at them for the rest of our lives.

Back to recording....
We get back in the studio tomorrow and we'll be going straight until the day before Thanksgiving. Then we take a few days off and mix it, then that's that. We expect it to be done and off to the presses on December 6th and released in mid February. Can't wait.

PS-we're going on tour in December for a few days playing shows in smaller clubs. tickets are on sale and dates on our website

In The Studio - Day 2

It's our second day in the studio, if you didn't get that from the headline. We're at "the clubhouse" in Rheinbeck, NY. We're recording drums right now in a big barn an living in the attached 5 bedroom farmhouse. It's pretty cool up here, if you're into this sort of thing. I was born and raised in Queens, NY so living on 10 acres of woods and being 5 miles from the nearest store is totally not my scene. We're trying to work out some sort of video update to give everyone a tour if the studio.

We spent all day yesterday and most of today getting drum sounds. We're recording in this huge barn so they're sounding pretty huge. At around 4:30pm today we decided on some tones and we started tracking. So far we have 1 drum take done for a song we're calling "SONG A" right now, for obvious reasons. We haven't came up with an official name yet. The chorus of the song is "The healing power of alcohol only works on scrapes and nicks, not on girls in seedy bars that drown themselves in it". If you think you have a good title, let us know. Chris is kicking ass so far. He's just going back into the drum room to start tracking a song we're calling "Master of Muppets" for absolutly no reason other then needing to call it something until we have a real title. If you've seen us live lately, that's the new song we've been playing.

We're going to be up here in Rheinbeck for about another week and then we head down to Queens to get started on bass and guitars. We expect to be finished with the record sometime in early December. Shortly after we finish recording, we're going to be playing 8 shows in the Northeast in small clubs just for kicks. All the shows are booked already but we're holding off on announcing club, date and ticket info until we feel like we're ready.

I know i haven't updated in a whille but I'll be back on the ball now that we're settled into the studio.