MACHINE HEAD Production Blog #1 Now Streaming
March 11, 2014, 10 years ago
MACHINE HEAD have uploaded the first in a series of short segments regarding the production side of making their forthcoming new album, expected in late-2014 via Nuclear Blast.
Machine Head loaded into GREEN DAY's Jingle Town Studios in Oakland, CA to start recording their new album on Sunday, February 9th.
Less than a week before we got into JingleTown we finished a pair of songs, one of which was literally not even an idea the week previous. Phil brought in some great, GREAT stuff at the 11th hour and we were able to turn it into a really cool song with the working title of: 'Sharkbite Days Revisited'.
The other song, formerly-known-as 'Blazing Saddles' just wasn't working. Even though it had some cool parts it was just too god damned hard to play and make it sound natural, so we back-burnered it for a while. It was the type of song where we finally realized our mortality, LOL! One of those 'dammit, I can't play this fast at my age anymore' kind of moments! But it was a song that came at a time when we needed a good kick in the ass, and it completely helped break my writer's block. It was the crack in the dam and after that, all hell flowed. So if anything it served its purpose well!
So on the 2nd to last day of rehearsals McClain and I deconstructed 'Blazing Saddles', and then reconstructed it into a far simpler structure, and its fuckin rockin'! Less of a SLAYER/SLIIPKNOT vibe, and more of a Screaming For Vengeance-era JUDAS PRIEST feel to it. Appropriately, it has now been given the working title: 'Simmering Saddles'.
I laid down some scratch vocal ideas on the three "newest" tunes, and made some huge progress on the song (working title: 'Riffnado'). I can already tell it’s gonna be really cool.
So that’s about it for now. I know it doesn't look like much, but as my engineer Juan says, 'there some blood on the board there' (pic below)."
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