BASSES LOADED

Ok, now that the drums and some guitars were on the track it was my turn to play my part in the makings of the new album. I grabbed my new sweetheart, a pimped up Tokai jazz bass (special shout out to Kari Olli from Pressure Points for mending my basses!) and headed towards Kotka. When I arrived at the afternoon guitar maestro Mrks and our engineer/producer Teemu informed me that the first thing to do in the studio was to carry an Ampeg 8x10" cabinet upstairs through very slim stairs. Nice. But heavy sound requires heavy duty and we managed it without casualties.

After I got my instruments stringed and set up it was time to put the amps, cabinets and microphones in place, do soundcheck and we were ready to go! Before the day was done we got one bass track finished and had some sort of vision of what kind of sounds we wanted to have for the rest of the songs. Not bad for a few hours work.

The second day started early. Too early in my opinion but our slave driver Teemu had no mercy on our poor souls, which became very clear as the sessions moved on. Time after time I heard him say: "Yeah, it was ok but let's do another one", "Nice. Again!" and so on... But it's good, now we can be sure that those takes that made it into finished tracks are top notch. Or at least the best we can do...

Recording in our own place was a pleasurable experience. We didn't have stressing schedules, could relax in a familiar environment and have friends stop by now and then for a little chit chat. Easy living, despite the slaver and some minor musical disagreements. On the evening of the second day three more tracks were ready and it was time for some late night entertainment; Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" Who says you need drugs to get high?! During the sessions we also drew inspiration from Rush's "Beyond the Lighted Stage" and Metallica's "Some Kind of Monster" to see how the real pros do their thing...

The next day was uneventful but busy. We got four tracks done, so there was only one song left to do. Time for a beer.

On the last day we got early (again!) to the studio to finish the last song and get it over with. I was sure to do it quickly and be back home before afternoon. Not so. There wasn't any problems with the song but the final listening of the finished tracks made Markus realise that one bass part just wasn't right for the particular song. That's when things got ugly. We started to mouth off each other and pretty soon were throwing the punches! It was just crazy, furniture chrashing all over the place and guitars smashed to the walls and... Well, ok, not really. But it COULD have happened that way, it was a hard riff to play! After some sulking we agreed to arrange and record it again. It took hours (told you it was a difficult riff) but somehow we got it made and I was a free man again. Heading back home I left the guys scheming the guitar solos and other musically irrelevant stuff... My work here was done!

-Toni