I’m back from the long winding halls of Fanshaw College with my machete in hand ready to make yet another notch in my session bedpost. I don’t think it could have gone any better then it did. If you’re wondering, “What the hell is he talking about?!” I would like to refer you to my last post. It started with a late post practice/double birthday munch-a-thon at our local Denny’s where Adrian and myself got to claim our free birthday breakfasts. Johnny, sadly, was the only one who had to pay full for his meal. Luckily he’s a straight up baller. Shortly after eateries concluded, Johnny and I made our way to the gates of Fanshaw where we were to begin our laying down of the drum tracks for our lift. Getting into the studio involved recollecting all the lessons I learned from the classic Jim Henson movie, ‘The Labyrinth’. Our studio time was booked from 2am until 5am, and it turns out after regular classes finish the school enters a sort of lock-down mode where almost every door is locked, chained, and watched by two armed guards… Not really. But it was quite the adventure. Once we dodged the cleaners and met up with Ludo, we were able to find our way to Studio 1. The next little bit includes a bunch of very uninteresting mic identifier and positioning terms, but once we had the studio kit set-up, ready to play, and mic’d it looked glorious…
It took about six takes to get it all played through. I definitely could have done better if I buckled down the few days before the recording but now I’ve learned a valuable lesson, you can always practice more. A lesson which had amazing timing as our studio help for the session, Ryan, was also doing a lift for the same class and needed a drummer to play on his song, Misery Business by Paramore. I’ve heard the song a bunch of times but I’ve never took the time to learn how to play the drums to it. We sat down for a bit and I air-drum-learned the song in about half an hour. We took about four takes of what I could manage to play. It turned out okay considering I just learned the song on the spot. Obviously the takes we took weren’t usable in a final studio mix of the song but it gave him some material to work with drum sounds. He was very kind and asked me if I’d want to learn and come back to Fanshaw early February to lay down the tracks for Misery Business. I of course peed myself, and then said yes.
I had such a great time playing for Johnny, and I’m grateful to have met Ryan and for him to ask me to be a part of his project. I got a lot of air drumming to do, folks. So until next time – Enjoy this video and get stoked!
-Nich
Nich Longe 