It's been a busy couple of months and Marie and I are very close to making the move up to the new house. Priority one has always been getting the house right (in every way) and living there as soon as possible. We are now down to a few weeks on that front. Once we're living there, we can concentrate on getting the studio completed! That can't come soon enough.
We've already moved some of things up to the new place and will continue to do so over the next few weeks. After that, we have professionals coming to move the large/heavy items. In the meantime, we've towed a twelve foot trailer up there twice and will likely do several more trips with that.
In the midst of all of that, Soul Rash has been back in the studio. Let me explain - ironically I currently have a little over 100 square feet to produce music. There is really no room for more than my console, outboard gear, a set of speakers, some keyboards me and maybe one other person. It is unpleasant and a stark contrast from the room I will soon have to produce music within! The live tracking room alone at the new place is ~700 square feet! But that hasn't stopped us. My bandmate Chris Smith and I have been making demos of new songs in there over the last few months for the third Soul Rash album. We've been squeezed in that room along with the significant heat from my SSL console!! One song in particular has jumped out front, so we decided to finish it and release it first. There's a story there. Marie has always asked me and more recently Soul Rash to produce a modern Christmas song. While this doesn't seem at all on brand for Soul Rash, we put our twist on it and used Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as a theme. Most of the movie adaptations are quite dark of course, but we chose to pursue the positive theme of "it's better to give than receive" and that it's not too late to change your ways. Each verse represents one of the three spirits that visited Scrooge. We left Marley out altogether.
To produce the track, Chris and I worked in the above mentioned space to construct the guitars and keyboards along with a scratch track of drums and bass. Then the rest of the magic happens. Billy McKee (our singer) and his awesome daughters tracked the vocals at Carney Audio in NY. Chris Rybitski squeezed into the tiny room with us to put down a killer bass track. Brett (my brother) and I tracked the drums at Carriage House Studios in CT. (Long time friend Lenny Lee showed up which was a blast and a pleasure to have him there for the session). I then brought it all back to my hot room and mixed it. We then sent it to Anna Frick at Ally Sound for Mastering.
Chris Rybitski tracking bass at my place
Me and Brett at Carriage House tracking drums
The bottom line is - the track will be released as a single on May 24 and is available on all of the major music platforms. Please stream, download, listen or whatever often!
This link will get you to all of the platforms once released this Friday!
Thanks for listening. - Jim
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