The Human Abstract [New Album Out August 19]

We're here at RedBull studios in beautiful santa monica, California, and we've got enough free red bull to kill an elephant. Our extreme caffeine intake has allowed us to get a great start on this album, yet occasionally one of us will get too cracked out and is unable to record without stepping outside for a nice green break (we LOVE the "outdoors"). Our producer Toby Wright (metallica, slayer, alice in chains) has established a great way to record this album, and we're really focusing on catching the live energy of the music on the recording. Just recently we've hit the point where we've established a no-redbull rule for anyone who needs to do any playing. An entire fridge full of that deliciousness is more tempting than we thought, and when you're sitting in front of an unlimited supply of it, one more redbull just always seems like a good idea.We're trying a new method of recording on this record that is entirely different from the way that Nocturne was recorded. This time we spent about two months solid, writing every day all day, and knew exactly what we were gonna be doing when we went into the studio.
All of us are recording our parts in a room together, but all of our amps and whatnot are set up in a different isolation booth that are filled with mics. Recording all of the songs in a group together instead of doing overdubs (recording parts independently) really pushes all of us to perform at the top of our game, and the songs have been rapidly changing by feeding off of each other and improvising lots of new parts. In the past week we've finished recording what were calling our demos, but really its just a rough way for us to be able to listen to the album as a whole, which then makes things like artwork and song titles just kind of fall into place. While the players are focusing on our parts and structures, nathan is in a isolation booth tracking vocals. Once the instrumentalists finish the rough recordings, we send them to him as we go along, and then once he sends back his part of it, the serious recording starts. Without the vocals, the rest of the band really can't get the entire feel for the songs. That's one major difference from Nocturne, we're really shaping the songs more around the vocals, instead of just writing music and then throwing screaming over it to conver the space. Overall were just focusing on pulling a very organic and real sound from this album. We're letting mistakes ride and giving room for more improvisation and feeling to be in the music. now i gotta go shoot up some red bull, don't wanna lose my focus..

-sean leonard, ivories