It took me until August to decide to stop resisting doing a remote Hard Modes project.
When 2020 began, the band was at a high point. On January 4 we had played a dream gig at MAGFest, and on the 16th we kicked off our first hometown gig of the year with our new pianist, Gabe Planas. We had more gigs lined up at the beginning of the year than any other year prior, and I had already begun preparing for a second helping of Free Play.
When the pandemic hit, I was trying to be patient, but my optimism eroded quickly as the situation got worse. After having moved our planned recording session once already from December to March, and with the pandemic cancelling the session indefinitely, I knew that I still wanted to release something in 2020. My first move was to get a collection of live cuts from 2019 up, which culminated in Extra Lives, Vol. 1 coming out in July (after about two months trying to email back and forth with Soundrop—if you need their support team, chat them; don’t email).
I was being very stubborn about making the transition to doing remote recordings with the band. After all, it’s the improvisational moment and the musical conversations between each of us that take place spontaneously in real time that are key to our relationship with the music we play. Recording individually and mixing the parts together removes those elements and, in my opinion, neuters what makes The Hard Modes distinct.
But, it was either adapt or effectively die off until the pandemic is over. The latter wasn’t an option, though—not only would it be a disservice to our fans, but disconnecting from the music in such a harsh way wouldn’t guarantee that the band would survive when things are back to something that resembles normal. We had to find a middle ground to keep us going.
The answer to this is what we are calling our “LAN Sessions.” The name is such because, since we’re all local to Charlottesville, we’re in about as “local area network” as remote recordings get, plus it’s fun to remember the days when we would lug our gear around to set up a LAN network at a friend’s house to get some serious multiplayer gaming going.
Check out our first video of the series, “Sunset Waltz” from Final Fantasy XV (composed by Yoko Shimomura):
What makes the LAN Sessions unique is that, with these recordings, we’re trying to come as close to those improvisational moments as possible by doubling up our recordings. For our first release, our recording order went like this: drums, keys, bass, sax, trumpet, keys 2, drums 2, and bass 2.
By sandwiching our recordings like this, we can get a bit of interplay going, especially during the solos. First, the rhythm section sets up a real feel, replacing the mechanical MIDI sample files with their unique personalities and groove sensibilities. Doing so provides a nice bed for the soloists. Real feels and real comping begets more organic solo ideas, which then allows the rhythm section to build their second passes off of the more natural energy from the soloists.
For example, for my “Sunset” sax solo, I worked off of some of the ideas that were offered in the initial recordings even if they would be replaced in the future (which ends up making the final an homage to the complete body of work, not just the final recordings, even if no one outside of the band would ever know). Then, the rhythm section recorded again to build their comping off of some of my ideas.
There are a number of spots where you can really hear the dividends paying off throughout the piece, but two particular spots that I like are: 1) how the band’s energy changes when I dig in and start to play a little outside the changes here; and 2) how Gabe plays my variation of the tail end of my shameless drop of the “Mario Kart lick” near the beginning of his own solo. These are interactions that you expect to hear in person but are lost in compiling a bunch of click-track-backed takes from individual instrumentalists. I hope listeners can really hear and feel the difference when checking out our efforts during this series. Special thanks to the guys for sticking with the extra work and for delivering some great musical moments.
While the project took a long time to get off the ground—I sent out my arrangement of “Sunset” at the end of August and we released it January 19—we’re going to be trying to release a video about once a month for 2021. We’ve got the next 4 arranged already and some tracks have already been sent in for two of them.
I’m really excited about 2021 for the band. Our goal is to release that steady content leading up to when we can start gigging again, when we can have our long-anticipated recording session, and more. If you like what we did for “Sunset,” you’ll love what’s coming down the pipeline.
Until next time! As always, thanks so much for listening and reading.
