What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been!
Day's rigorous touring schedule makes him a wily veteran at age 23!
“There are songs that lose a certain intimacy when you bring a band into it,” Day states. “Then there are other songs that lose the balls of it when you lose the band.”
“Strange” might seem a bit odd in describing Howie Day's career, but there are
few musicians at the age of 23 with two albums and more than five years of
touring under their proverbial musical belts.
“I wouldn't say ‘surprised'—maybe ‘thankful,'” Day says of his success. “It hasn't felt like it's happened really fast; I feel it's been building and building little by little, which is nice. I think if it'd happened all at once it would have been scary.”
Day, who released his sophomore album Stop All The World Now last October, knew he would make music his career when he was 16.
“When you're that age, everyone is grilling you at school and you have to figure out what you're going to do or have a plan,” he reflects. “That was my solution to the problem: ‘I'll play music, that'll be fun!' I sort of realized then that I was going to figure it out one way or another.”
And figured it out he has. After releasing and self-financing his debut Australia , Sony Music took an interest in Day's thoughtful and uplifting folk-pop style. The label eventually reissued the album, meaning it would be nearly three years before Day would have a chance to get back into the studio for the traditionally nerve-wrecking sophomore effort.
“It was a little freaky, a little intimidating for sure,” he relates. “But you know you just have to try not to worry about those things and focus on going in and making music and having fun—which is the whole reason you get into it.”
According to Day, Stop All The World Now is the polar opposite to Australia in terms of tone.
“Overall, I think the songs got a lot moodier and there's a little more of a sedated vibe to the album,” Day says comparing the two albums. “It's something I had to do because the first album I felt was kind of up and happy so I felt like making a sadder album this time for some reason. Also, it's a bit more polished. We had a lot of time to spend on it so we kind of over-thought everything, but in a good way.”
The musician wrote the album in different areas, including New Orleans, where he penned the single Collide with Better Than Ezra 's Kevin Griffin .
“It was one of those songs that were really easy to finish,” Day says. “As a songwriter, once in a while you have a song that you just finish in one day. A lot of times you work on it and then you have to come back to it and work on it some more. We had great fun writing it.”
But perhaps nothing prepared him for the recording sessions in London with producer Youth , who has worked on albums by Dido , Crowded House and The Verve . After discussing the theme behind the album, both decided strings would be used on four or five songs. Day wasn't prepared, though, for what would transpire.
“We basically sent the tracks to Will Malone , who did the string arrangements, and we trusted him with it; he's amazing,” Day recalls vividly. “He did the strings on The Verve 's Urban Hymns , one of my favorite albums. I wasn't that interested in getting knee-deep in string arrangements so I just handed them off to him. One day the orchestra came in and I got to sit up against the other side of the glass and watch the orchestra play my songs. It was pretty moving.”
It was also a long way from the traditional singer-songwriter format of a performer and his or her beat-up acoustic guitar. Not wanting to go the same route as hordes of fellow performers or be easily pigeonholed, Day's eyes were opened at the age of 19 by New York area musician Joseph Arthur and his use of “looping”—taking various beats or guitar chords and slowly building atop each other, creating the sound of a full band despite playing solo.
“Of course now everybody and their brother does loops, but that was my first experience seeing it and he does it in a really ethereal, cool way,” Day declares. “My jaw hit the floor. And I was really getting bored of being really predictable as a solo artist with an acoustic guitar. A young kid gets up there and you expect him to be a Dave Matthews cover band. He just opened my eyes to the looping thing.”
Day will tour as a supporting act to O.A.R. for most of the summer, including three stops in Florida beginning August 16 at the Jannus Landing in St. Petersburg, a headlining slot August 19 in Orlando and finally wrapping up the tour sometime in September to start his third album.
Unlike the solo gigs, Day has a full band behind him on these current shows. It's a great way of keeping things fresh.
“I do a little of both because I'm on the road a lot,” he says. “My record is 298 shows in one year, which is kind of ridiculous, really. So to be able to do both solo gigs and band gigs is completely different for me, it's a completely different show. So that way you don't get burned out on either one.
Because of the different format, some of the songs also come across in a slightly different way—sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
“There are songs that lose a certain intimacy when you bring a band into it,” Day states. “Then there are other songs that lose the balls of it when you lose the band. It can go either way.”
As for the songs themselves, he can't possibly pick a favorite because it would be like father picking their favorite child.
“You can't choose between them and if you did you would be a bastard,” he laughs. “You can sense the excitement though about some songs. One of the gauges I always use when I'm writing or recording in the studio is if I can listen back to the song and still get goose bumps, than I know it's on!”
August 18
The Music of Champions
Morning Drinker Studio's Matt Cohen talks recording, the local scene and the ongoing science experiment that is music
“There are so many studios that when you walk in, they [the engineer] went to Fullsail, they all learn to record the same way,” says Cohen. “So when a band comes in they mic up the drums the same way. They give everything the same E.Q. It doesn't matter if you're playing funk, garage, or metal. It's all the same to them. It's not the same. Not everybody wants to sound like Three Doors Down .”
Amid an undulating sea of vintage keyboards, guitar amps and microphones, brit-pop posters flutter in the air-conditioned cool swirling around the homelike recording environment known as Morning Drinker Studios . Above the maelstrom of Rhodes, Hammond and Neuman sits the control room; a converted loft filled to bursting with mixing boards, a totem of rack units, select porn, headphones and pre-amps.
And while Matt Cohen has certainly gained a reputation for his skills behind the mixing board, the 29-year-old confesses to not, at first, being drawn to the formalities of music: “I played piano for a bit. I took guitar lessons for a year but it wasn't what I wanted to do at the time. I didn't really want to read sheet music. I started with bands at 17. A year and a half ago I decided I was going to take the plunge and make music my career—a career that could have easily included a stint as a professional break dancer.”
All this came about in 1999 when Matt moved his home studio to his new digs in an Oakland Park warehouse space. It also became the permanent home for his band Whirlaway . Late-night jams turned into early morning music marathons and thus began the idea for Morning Drinker, a name that came after one particular night spent guzzling Miller High Life and staring at their Vans.
“Essentially, this is a practice studio for Whirlaway ,” says Cohen. “We recorded our third album here. There were a lot of long sessions playing and drinking into the morning. That's how the name came about. It was the name that stuck.”
There's even an urban myth that suggests a famous, 1970s porn star haunts the studio. A mulleted neighbor to the studio was eager to talk about her and would only do so if his identity was kept secret.
“Oh, she's around all right,” the neighbor says. “A couple of buddies and me were drinking one night and we hear this moaning coming from somewhere outside. Then we smelled the exhaust fumes, even though there was no car on. I was scared, I can tell you that. She likes the music, though”
Cohen just shakes his head when asked about the supernatural, dismissing it with a smile. What he would rather talk about is his studio and the benefits of recording with him at the helm.
“There are so many studios that when you walk in, they [the engineer] went to Fullsail, they all learn to record the same way,” says Cohen. “So when a band comes in they mic up the drums the same way. They give everything the same E.Q. It doesn't matter if you're playing funk, garage, or metal. It's all the same to them. It's not the same. Not everybody wants to sound like Three Doors Down .”
This penchant for nontraditional recording is immediately obvious on the track Walkthrough off of Whirlaway's 2004 release Pompano , named after an area of South Florida that most of the members have called home since puberty. Laced with as much discord as harmony, the production on the song demands as much recognition as the individual notes that are bent out of tune. Layers of haunting vocals that remind one of 10CC wash over the song as sonic barrages of effect-laden guitar congeal and dissipate, a sound many have likened to shoegaze legends Ride .
In addition to Cohen's personal projects, Morning Drinker Studios has left an indelible impact on the South Florida music scene in a short period of time. The list of artists penned into Morning Drinker's daily affairs include The Remedy Session , The Bright Side , Helen Horal , Summer Blanket , Atlantic Records artist Mary Karlzen , Baby Robots , BlowFly & Afro Man and The Gruntled .
Recording their second album with Cohen, The Remedy Session's drummer Alex Osuna was eager to talk about her experiences at Morning Drinker: “Matt's real easy to work with because he's able to put himself in the position of the band. He helps form the vision of what you have. When you are doing the tracks, you are on the same page. He's affordable and that gives us more time to develop ideas and experiment. You don't want to settle in the studio.”
This affection for Cohen's comfortable studio comes from an attention to detail, a bedside manner that's as infectious as typhoid, and a true love of experimentation.
“I had worked in photography for a long time,” reveals Cohen. “The industry was changing. I learned shooting film and now everything was being done on computers. It is very similar to the way recording was done on tape and now it is digital. My process is blending the two, I record all my live tracks on tape, then I transfer and do all my editing and mixing on the computer.”
This calculated approach defines Cohen's production merit as he assembles music influenced by late 1960s and early 1970s recordings.
“My first big phase was Led Zeppelin , but I don't always go after the big drum sound like they had back then. Pink Floyd has a big influence on the experimentation I do. They would go into the studio and make their own sound. That's more my school of thought,” he explained.
Bands like Pavement , Blur and The Smiths play an equal role in helping to shape that sound.
Keith Michaud of Summer Blanket shares this sentiment. Their record Charm Wrestling was recorded at Morning Drinker and was recently awarded Best Record Of The Past 12-Months by The New Times .
“The record was really personal for me,” explains Michaud. “I was going through quite a bit while recording and it was fortunate we worked with Matt. I've heard bands complain about recording, but it was so much fun. We were able to experiment and allowed the time to try anything. This atmosphere of creativity prompted us to do our follow-up there. He's not just a good recordist, he's a great friend.”
Matt Cohen can be reached at mdsproduction@yahoo.com , or through his band's website at www.whirlawaymusic.com