This one is influenced by John Vanderslice, particularly his fourth album “Cellar Door.” I tried to copy the same sort of beat and feel of his song, “White Plains.”
I began recording this song with the guitar riff. In my head, I had a beat figured out but since I didn’t have a drum set at the time, I had to use programming to create the beat. Then I added a bass guitar to give it a little groove.
After adding those parts and the vocals, I had the core of the song down but I felt like it needed some different textures to make it interesting. I added three different guitar parts played by an ebow. They mostly act as a drone staying on the same note and filling things in a little. While those guitar ebow drones sound something like a synthesizer, I went ahead and added another part that actually IS a synthesizer on top of the ebow part for additional texture.
Once we got to the solo section, I wanted to step up the chaos and noise a bit so I added a few buzzy synth parts, then a synth with a delay (which kind of sounds like something from a video game), plus a really crazy noise pad played on my iPad.
For the arpeggiated keyboard line I took some inspiration from the band, What Made Milwaukee Famous and their song “idecide.”
I wanted that same sort of sound with their synth line and I especially liked the way it co-exists with the guitar part. So I came up with my own arpeggiated solo, which I played as two separate parts so I could have it bounce back and forth from the left to the right speaker.
To top it all off, I needed one more element. And that element was beat boxing. Yes, I actually beat boxed on this song! Hey, there’s first for everything, right.
I think this is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever recorded. I hope you like it.
Podcast Episode:
jakehaws.com/ep-28-song-i-get-by-influenced-by-john-vanderslice/
from
50 Songs in 50 Weeks,
released December 31, 2012
Jake Haws: Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Drum Loops, Synths, Noise Pad, Beat Boxing