Dispatches: Sidekicks (Episode 3)

Cleveland, Ohio's The Sidekicks have been busy prepping Weight of Air, the followup to their 2007 Red Scare effort, So Long, Soggy Dog. To get people stoked, they agreed to pen us a series of Dispatches, the third of which we bring you this evening.
You can click Read More for the Dispatch.

Day Four of Recording Weight of Air

I think recording can be a checkpoint of sorts for a band. Any changes made in their sound, songwriting, or approach aren’t fully realized until the songs have been solidified on record. All the work that goes into writing a record seems to be just guesswork at best, hoping for the intended outcome. A band could be aiming for Paul Westerberg, but when all’s said and done, end up with something more along the lines of RuPaul. We weren’t really aiming for anything, so I think that’s the same as aiming for Beck.

This will be the first recording since Matt hopped onboard to play guitar and help sing. Having him gives us the ability to do a lot of different things vocally, including harmonies pretty much whenever we want. By day four we had finished up all the guitars, bass, drums, and lead vocals, so all we had left was backups. We were again tracking vocals in a bedroom on the third floor of the house I live in, located in Columbus, Ohio, a city probably best known for its invention of cornhole (fuuuuuuuuccckk yeeaaa).

Anytime Matt is getting ready to sing, he lets out this bloodcurdling scream to warm up his pipes. He did so, then proceeded to track vocals for the first song. It was really amazing hearing him do vocals, simply because he doesn’t fuck up. Basically the only times he had to do more than one take was if we wanted to try something different. And he was hitting notes that were just unreal. I would tell him to sing a melody that my voice cracks at just thinking about, and he would proceed to bellow out the notes, spot on. There were times that the people listening began giddily laughing because of how insane his range was, as he was hitting these notes full force, and loud. If it were NBA Jam, dude would have been Barkley, "on fire", backflip-dunking from half court the whole game.

The stuff that Matt added gave each song a boost, and made the record much stronger. We also added some oozin’ ah’s to three of the songs, which was new for us. Matt and I also recorded a song with just acoustic guitar and both of us singing (Matt at the top of his lungs), tracked live. I think it came out interesting, as the room had a cool sound to it, and the song will add an extra element to the album.

As we played back the songs, the changes and steps we had made as a band became apparent. I would be lying if I said this record isn’t stylistically a pretty big leap from our past full-length. The album is very personal, but I think since the vocals came out strong, the lyrics seem genuine, whereas if the vocals were weak, it could have come off as insincere (hopefully this assessment isn’t off). All in all, though, I think it still has the same spirit that we have always had (smoke ‘em if you got ‘em).

It was a great experience to work with our friends Eric and Andy. We are fortunate to be able to work with such talented people with whom we can get along so well. If I had to choose, I would pick making a friend over making a business connection any day, and when those friends happen to help our music, it's touch-‘em-all time for Jim Thome (err…the Sidekicks).

-Steve