Inside & Terrified

I wrote the five songs on my new EP, Inside & Terrified, at the beginning of quarantine. I actually wrote eight songs in April, when we switched to online learning and Little League was canceled. Suddenly, I didn’t have to drive a bunch of kids around in my minivan, and settled into a less active, more contemplative life.

I wasn’t planning to record any music this Spring. First, I didn’t have a chunk of change lying around after financing Some of Us Are Free, Some of Us Are Lost on my own in 2019. Second, I lacked the equipment and expertise needed to record at home, which has been the only option during shelter-in-place. Finally, I’ve had another project in the works for a couple of years, and wanted to push that forward.

But, in my experience, when the songs start to pile up, you get the urge to do something with them. For example, I’ve always wanted to make an album of songs about sports, and – after writing one about power forward A.C. Green – I had enough for an EP about the Showtime-era Lakers or some combination of Lakers, Golden State Warriors, and Los Angeles Dodgers/Major League Baseball. I also had more than a handful of songs about politics and, perhaps inevitably, another handful about COVID-19 and the associated circumstances.

I didn’t set out to write about the global pandemic, but I didn’t resist either. Why bother, when it was all I was thinking about? The first three – Now, I’m In Favor Of A Wall, I Hope You’re OK, Christine, and Inside & Terrified – were fairly straightforward, but then I started drifting more abstract territory. In Terms of Lunar Cycles (It’s a Lonely Phase) and I Often Dream of Candlelight (Maria) even have artsier titles! This Is Wild Land showed up in May and replaced I Hope You’re OK, Christine, because Christine didn’t fit into the developing musical vibe and maybe isn’t as interesting lyrically:

I Hope You’re OK, Christine

I should have known when I called producer Jonny Flaugher that he’d respond enthusiastically. We had a fun and fruitful time making Some of Us Are Free, Some of Us Are Lost together not that long ago, and it’s not like he was headed out on a lengthy world tour. As it turns out, a lot of musicians were in the same boat: stuck at home and ready to work. Jonny started by reaching out to drummer Jay Bellerose – who features on a lot of records in my musical sphere and is known for making unexpected choices – and Dave Levita, who plays rock with Alanis Morrissette and country with Tim McGraw but manned the nylon-string guitar on my thing. Harmony singer Maria Taylor and Jonny on bass completed the excellent core band that would flesh out the tracks.

Before they could work their magic, I had to figure out home recording. More specifically, I had to overcome my fear of having to devote thousands of dollars to cobbling together a home studio and several weeks to learning how to use it. But I’d been here before: first, when a publicist told me I had to make videos if I wanted press coverage, and again when it was time for a website redesign. In those cases, initial panic gave way to the realization that the processes aren’t what they used to be, and I can figure them out. With the help of my brother-in-law, I made my first video with an iPhone and iMovie, which can be mastered in hours. WordPress has a steeper learning curve, but I dove into that too and have now built a bunch of websites.

I was already feeling semi-empowered from internet research when I ran into my friend Byron Gill at a Yemeni restaurant in the Tenderloin. While we waited for takeout, he talked me through the setup and offered to lend me a decent microphone for as long as I needed it. With his Baby Blue Bottle, GarageBand, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 digital interface I found in my closet, and a couple of YouTube tutorials, I went from clueless to fully functional in a matter of days, and not one person has complained about the sound of my acoustic guitar or vocals. And, excluding the sunk costs associated with the interface, a mic stand, and my computer, I did it all for about $100 or the price of a shock mount.

Really, the whole thing turned out to be pretty manageable. I’d send a recording to Flaugher, who’d send it to Levita and then Bellerose or Bellerose then Levita depending on their workload or his mood or at random. Then, based on what they played, we’d explore additional color: Cristof Knoche played clarinet and bass clarinet on two of the songs, Jordan Katz added trumpet and flugelhorn to one, and Paul Cartwright wrote and performed a typically beautiful string arrangement for violin and viola on another. We also snuck in Jon Gilutin‘s piano onto a couple of tracks, which was a nice touch.

The problem with the process was the hang. By which I mean, there was no hang: I’ve never even met most of these musicians except on text and email. As someone who spends a lot of time with middle schoolers, I count on recording sessions to broaden and deepen my circle of acquaintance among grown-ups who can tell me stories about other recording sessions and gigs and etc. I mean, what’s the point of making music if you aren’t also going to hear about the time someone was creatively and hilariously blown off by Bob Dylan backstage at Saturday Night Live, or faked their way through a film score when they couldn’t read music, or didn’t get paid by singer/songwriter X but met drummer Y who recommended him for a gig with producer Z so it all worked out in the end.

Other than that, music making under quarantine conditions works pretty well for me. First, while you miss the musical and personal interaction, you save the shitload of money you’d spend on recording studios. Second, while everyone can benefit from a working vacation, it’s nice not to have to go anywhere, because it eliminates any strain on the family unit. My wife was super-cool about the ten days it took to make Lost Soul in 2015, but it can’t have been easy to do her regular job and manage the many pick-ups and drop-offs in our life. Her only complaints about Inside & Terrified were when I set up the “studio” in front of the TV when she wanted to watch Rachel Maddow or sang the same two verses over and over again on a weekend afternoon.

Now that Inside & Terrified is out in the world, I’m starting to think about the next remote recording project. Why not, when it’s relatively easy and inexpensive? A really inexpensive approach would be to strip it down even further: guitar and vocal only or guitar and vocal plus another instrument or two. Another idea is to make a messy rock or power pop EP with simple themes and big hooks: “Bob Hillman & the Attractions” but without Elvis Costello’s songs or band. I’m not sure I have the songs together for that yet, but it’s on my mind. In the meantime, my “noise folk” EP – a collaboration with guitarist Gerry Leonard aka Spooky Ghost – hits digital shelves on December 11th. I may not ever achieve broad notoriety, but there will be more music one way or another.