GOD FORBID’S DALLAS COYLE OFFERS UPDATE ON NEW ALBUM
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 3:48pm by Dallas Coyle
What’s up party peoples? I just got back from LA after finishing up the vocals for the new album. After hearing this record for almost a year now I can say I’m tired of it and excited for it at the same time. Is that possible?
We worked on the vocals for a month when we thought it would take two weeks. This has been the M.O. with this record. The label is pissed off because we didn’t meet certain deadlines, we’re pissed because the person who was supposed to mix it pulled out on us last minute. In all honesty, we deserved it because we did the same thing to him when we couldn’t finish up everything before the Death Angel tour. The tit for tat was well deserved. Karma.
With a ridiculously saturated fall schedule it may be a blessing. Metallica, Trivium, All That Remains, Mastodon, Gojira, Dragon Force, etc, etc. Would you want to put out a record with all of those records coming out too? We seem to be a band that gets lost in a shuffle if our timing is shit.
This recording process has been the most excruciating for all of us. Recording fucking sucks. One reason it sucks is because once it’s done it’s out there forever. It’s like the final seconds of a tied game and a player has to make the winning shot. You either hit it or you don’t. The second reason is we can’t make a living while working on a record. Many people think bands get paid to record when in reality we’re not getting paid when we’re working on the record. Usually we have a budget that involves monthly bills for each member but since we ran over time and budget we were pretty much in LA for a month with no income coming in. So right now as I write this my bank account is shot to shit and I’m looking for some consultation opportunities because I have to play catch up. It’s a constant game of catch up really. All life is if you think about it.
Unless you are fortunate enough to make enough money to save while living, it seems like we are constantly looking over our shoulder at the next financial hurdle. When I worked a real job, I lived week to week. Now I live money increment to money increment. Unless we’re on the road we don’t see money week to week. It’s here and there and it can fuck with your head.
Making this record has severely fucked with my head. When you have to create every day for 8 to 12 hours a day it can really mush things in your brain. I wasn’t able to write scripts, work on other music or even think while we were doing these vocals. I wanted to make this record the best it could be and for the first time ever in our career I’m not sure we have succeeded. Before, I knew it was the best! Now, I don’t think about it. Expectations can make a good thing dog shit. There are always people who like your last album more than the new one. There are so many people who say ‘Determination’ is the shit then they don’t like ‘Gone Forever’ and then they love ‘Constitution’. How are we supposed to know?
We’ve finished vocals but the process isn’t over. We still haven’t mixed or mastered the record. We haven’t solidified all of the artwork. For me, the record isn’t done till you see the whole package. In one sense it’s very sad because the I-Pod generation doesn’t really get that. As a musician the process is very personal and seeing the final product is like seeing your baby for the first time. There’s the release date, the video, the press, the reviews — It’s such a process and once you’ve been through it a bunch it can get to you. I’m happy I have some time to chill out and get my post-album shit going.
Making records is difficult and that’s why people should buy them. A lot of bands break up because they find it difficult to work in the studio. It’s a stressful fucking place because there is so much riding on it. Labels, managers and agents all get paid off the blood and sweat of the musicians toiling over their next ‘opus’ or whatever they call it.
If you any of you are in any bands I’d like to read your best or worst studio experiences. If you’re friends with a band I’d like to hear your experiences when you visit them in the studio. I’m sure there are some funny breakdowns and fights when emotions get into it! They always do.
Keep it Real.
Wow. I feel for ya man. Somehow people have this notion that every musician in a ‘well known’ band is filthy rich.
As always… thanks for the awesome blogs Dallas! Very informative.
Per your thoughts on your album… I don’t think you should write an album to please your fans. Obviously, you are going to want to make sure that the people, that help put you in the position you are in, are happy but ultimately you should write the new album to please yourself and your bandmates. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself completely crazy trying to figure out if your new stuff is good enough. You cannot please everybody, so as long as you are happy with the music, then you can bet that most of your fans will also.
Just my .02
The recording process is most definitely a breaking point. The drummer for the band I was in was a total idiot savant. He could play like there was no tomorrow but he couldn’t remember a fucking song to save his life. We would play it over and over again for weeks and he would get it right maybe, MAYBE 2 out of 10 times. Then when it came time to do vocals, our singer would either sit around and have us jam while he was smoking cigarettes and talking on the phone or he would just end up leaving early to further the notion that he was in fact pussy whipped.
Both of them had a lot of talent and they were exactly what me and the bass player had imagined when we wanted to start a band. It just came to a point where laziness and lack of focus of the drummer and singer became more than we could bear.
Yeah recording is a bitch. My old drummer was amazing but he didn’t hit that hard. So the Recording engineer was always like “hit harder!” even when he through down best. He’d be like “You didn’t hit hard enough” Then finally he’s hitting the crap outta his drums and the dude’s like, “That was good but, I’m just gonna trigger your snare and bass drum. It’ll sound WAY better.” My drummer wanted to kill him.
Dallas, good to hear about the progress. I cant say relate (yet) but totally understand. Im not a fan of this Ipod generation, a bunch kids with ADD. All the work blood sweat & tears as you put it, goes to waste. I like being able to hold the CD & check out the artwork…hell, the CD booklet is my favorite part. Anyone who dowloads whole albums, i dont think they can appreciate the extra effort that goes in to beyond the music.
As far as the recording goes, Im not gonna come of as a pro but I love it & i hate it too. I actually just recorded some drum tax last nite. I always come out with the feeling of “oh, i could have done this better”..or..”i should have tried this instead” or whatever… but its feels good to hear yourself. I dont’ know that anyone gets used to recording, & now with all the ProTools & what not, everyone can cheat.
You recorded the album with Christian Olde Wolbers right? I have been impressed with his work on the Threat Signal and latest Mnemic album, yet I was underwhelmed with the latest Bleed the Sky disc.
Hope you can get a good mixer in…getting Tue Madsen in would be a good guy to ask, or even Logan Mader.
… the few experiances i had being in a studio & recording were fun. There was a time, with my last band, when were trying to mickey-mouse a demo with a guy who had a lockout room down the hall from us. We agreed 2weeks in advance to have him record us, over & over again with “we’re still on for saturday rite?”…. saturday came along and still had to check back with us if we still wanted to record. YES FOR CHRIST SAKES….
This guy finall shows up about 6 hours late, and because of that & that fact I had a prior appointment kind of put me in a rush to do my part since we were recording the drums. The demo’s quality suffered because of this.
I know you put out alot of footage while you were recording this album, but would you guys consider putting out a DVD with all the behind the scenes in making this album.
I remember Cannibal Corpse put one out with the making of The Wretched Spawn. Awesome vid. It hink Movies like this are a good learing tool!
Hey I can kinda relate to this a little bit. I used to play lead guitar in kingsize blues
My former band kingsize blues slaved hard for close to ten months writing our debut album in a shed, and in between, playing a few shows and after a tour in 06 my bro injured his wrist and couldnt play drums for four months. and man i can literally remember spending about two weeks straight in that shed doing all the prepro and what not and planning how we were going to spend the rest of the year booking gigs and etc programming every drum fill on midi etc
We had the studio booked last summer for a month and i can understand what you mean with the income. While we were doing prepro we were lucky enough to have jobs that allow us to the band for example teching or market research- those pricks that ring your house and ask you stupid questions haha and so we were able to save enough to get the album paid for as well as a shit caravan that cost 10 pounds a night – it had a huge whole in the floor and its cold up in the english countryside. it did mean we had to budget with food and spares etc and not working while doing the actual recording definately took its tolls on me. I feel bad for the other guitar player because he handled the majority of the guides in terms of programming them in. so he was in the studio for the whole month whereas i was there for three weeks- from the guitars= to being there for bass and even most of the vocals and i dont fucking sing haha. my bro was in their for a week for his drums and the bass player was in for two days. the singer was their for a few weekends i think.
One fond memory I have of tracking was taking over on some unfinished rhythym tracks. We had this philosophy of who ever wrote it, played the riff, and on this day after lunch on a rainy august day, our guitarist had crashed his car on the way back from lunch and had to go back home to get it repaired and wait for a spare part or something.
We had already spent that morning doing rhythym tracks and were planning on finishing em so i could move on to solos. so while he went home we cracked on with the solos . luckily i got about 6 tracks worth of solos done on that day didnt finish till about 11:30= (started at 9am) but i swear to you- i was fried.absolutely fried. my fingers were ruined and i had to be back at that studio at 9am the next day. I decided to attempt to finish the remaining rhyhthym track from the day before, did that and moved to solos that pissed me off. In the band- if theres one thing thats a negative- someone will just say- no thats shit do it again. the guitar player came back and heard the track and just said- no- fuck it ill do it. cue tearing my hair out and cursing the world and general madness.
After we went through that process, the band was burnt out and this year we decided to call it a day. playing our final show this sunday. we did get offered a distro deal but that involved more money that we didnt have to spend. the band was not a main priority anymore and we didnt earn much at all. we were lucky to have a booking agency and all that but things like petrol etc kill you in terms of an expense.
. how do you split 200 quid between five guys lol and pay for petrol when your playing in scotland or some far away place from home.
Dallas and the boys aint as lucky as we were in some respect with our album. for a start it was meant to be our debut album and these boys are on their 3rd for century media.
through god forbids constant touring and not having almost a years worth of time to write an album-its a fucking hard thing to attempt to do. and hats off to them because part way through the gone forever tour they wrote the consitution of treason which was fucking ace. theyve been touring for that album since september 05 and i have a feeling they’l do it again. they are tireless and respect is due for that. before i joined they toured with us in 05 in england and they didnt have to tour round that period but they fucking did it and did it damn well
hats off to ya dallas and all the best mate. hope the album does well .
These stories are crazy as hell. I’m not saying I’m unhappy with the record, i’m burnt out on it. Studio stories are crazy. I have some stuff from the studio I’ll be editing together soon.
Rock
As a record label, I think if you rush a band on a record, you get a shitty record. The contracts that I administer, I do one-album deals with a brand new act, this way they have time to write demo and record, then I ofer them multi-album deals with tentative deadlines. I also recommend to them that they always self-finance their album(s) because then they do not have to worry about paying me back or being put under deadlines that I give them. Though I do offeer album/studio support I find that most bands nowadays dont take it. This way everyone is happy, they make a good record, I get a good record to sell, and the band isnt in debt to me so they get to make profit on the road…New Jersey metal scene at its finest!!
About the Ipod generation: I think downloading sucks! It’s disrespectful to the artist that has created it, I ALWAYS buy cd’s if it’s a band I don’t know, I go to look for some samples or song on the ineternet and then choose whether or not I buy them, if it’s a band that Í like alot(GF for example) I instantly buy the band’s new album, because whether or not your(or any other bands) album will be better than the previous ones, it will still be at least something in the same vain of the other ones(maybe included with some neat surprises)
I don’t know how your new one is going to sound like, Determination was great, Gone Forever was doubled awesomeness and Constition was heavy as fuck!
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Not a musician here but a serious GF fan. Can you give us an idea of the timeframe needed to mix & master? Will we see the album in ‘08? Thanks
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cant wait till the new album comes out dallas really pumped, and i just want to say i hope you come back to perth western australia because i came up from bunbury which is two hours away on a tuesday night then had to drive back to go to work the next day, and i was really dissapointed with the turn out for you guys because you guys were really fucking tight that night and sounded incredible. maybe it was because there was fuckall people in the room you sounded so tight but i doubt it you guys still would have sounded sic. Hope you guys come back hey catchya