The Misfit Commentary - Recording
By: Erick Nelson
Last Updated: May 12, 2002
Observations About Music
In General
One of the things that is hard to remember is that music, at its heart, is not supposed to a competitive sport. I think it's meant to be a way to communicate, to bring reflection, joy, closeness, insight, things like that. If we didn't worry so much about who was hip and who was square, how we came across when we played, if we were good enough, etc., we'd be a lot happier. Sometimes all this extraneous stuff just sucks the life out of the music until the original joy of expression is completely lost.
One time a bunch of us went to Rancho Los Amigos hospital and sang for the kids there. Many of them had really severe physical problems. Mike MacIntosh led us over to the room of a girl named Shirley, who could leave her bed. She had the body, of maybe a 15-year old, but the mind of a baby - so she cried and moaned like an infant, but with an eerily deep voice. They had her arms tied to the sides of the beds with restraints, because she tried to bit herself. She was agitated when we came into the room. MacIntosh cheerfully suggested, "Hey, let's sing her a song." Everything in me rebelled. I almost left the room. I thought, what good is a crummy song going to do her? We could sing "Popeye the Sailor Man" and she wouldn't know the difference. We sang "Peace Give I to You" over and over again - poorly. And as we sang, I felt a real peace come over the room, and she calmed down to the point where the nurses were in awe. They said, "We've never seen her like this." I could feel God's presence for the first time in a long time, like a warm blanket in the room. I didn't really want to leave. That's when I realized again what music is for. God used a pathetic rendition of a simple song to do something spiritual, something real. Something none of us could have done by ourselves at all.
But, being rational beings and all, we can't help but compare. We like this more than that; the musically astute can't help but notice when somebody sings flat, or somebody does a great guitar solo; it's almost impossible not to pick favorites.
In the really early days of "Christian Music" at Calvary Chapel, they made a real attempt to avoid this kind of thing, by giving the One Way sign after each song, instead of applauding. I don't know who thought this up or how it started. The idea was great in principle, but flawed in practice. When you finished playing, you didn't hear a general buzz of polite applause, but instead you faced a small sea of faces, in complete silence, holding fingers in the air. This was at times unnerving - if lots of people were grateful to God for you, you'd see lots of fingers in the air; however, if only a few people felt praise welling up in their hearts, you'd only see a sporadic finger or two. It was kind of like scoring the high dive in the Olympics. You had instant feedback of exactly how many people liked you, and precisely who they were! What made it worse was that they weren't judging your music, they were judging your spiritual value. Thankfully, this custom just died out.
And so, as I read my comments about the songs and the recording experience of The Misfit, I see, even here, subtle and not-so-subtle instances of judgment and even competition. But, when all is said and done (as Geoff Moore sings), what really counts is what how the music moves us. The rest is fluff.
Recording
For those who haven't been around musicians much, the chance to go into a real professional recording studio is a total thrill. I can attest, at least for myself, that the opportunity just to do a demo and lay your song down, is great. But to do an album that lots of people will actually hear is almost too much to deal with. For many of the Maranatha bands, the thing that divided the real groups from the also-rans was the invitation to record a whole album of your own. Some good groups, like Aslan, lived on the cusp of this step up, but the reality never materialized. And, of course, in the general music business, groups do demos, tour frantically, try to make contacts, sign their lives away ... whatever it takes - just to get a record deal.
Sometimes, recording is just too much pressure. Other times, it's just about the most exciting thing I ever did. You haven't lived until you've just finished some background vocals and are now starting to double them. It just sounds great! No mix-down can match it. Or until you are in the studio watching and hearing the string players (violin, viola, cello, bass), playing your song - or singing lead vocal along with an orchestra. My legs and spine were literally quivering with excitement during my first experience of this.
Believe me, it's a rare privilege to do a real record. To have it receive a lot of airplay (in Southern California, at any rate) and then to be named one of the top 10 CCM albums of the year (1979) is certainly more than I ever deserved. One time Rick Conklin (of Aslan) wrote something about me that was quite an observation - he said that I had a talent for surrounding myself with great musicians. I don't know about such talent on my part, but from Good News, with Dave Diggs, Bill Batstone, and Bob Carlisle, to Michele Pillar and Jonathan Brown and the players on the Misfit - boy, was I surrounded by talent!
The Recording Experience
In General
Michele and I started singing together in about 1977. The story of how we got together is a long and potentially interesting one. The short version is: I saw her do "When Jeremiah Sang the Blues" and met her through my cousin Alf, then got her to sing on a couple of my recordings (Soldiers of the Cross, He Gave Me Love), then later I was trying to form a band and she was the only person that didn't fall through. I wasn't sure what to do, I had never intended to become a duet. But we sat down at the piano one day, and she said "Sing something and I'll sing with you", and as I sang some song, she sang it in unison with me - perfectly! Every little unconscious dip and slur and everything, blended absolutely perfectly. (The only difference between our voices was that she refused to sing slightly flat!) We worked out some harmonies and I thought, "Hey, not only is she good, we sing well together."
In the very, very early days, when we were first really thinking about this, I had a bunch of concerts already booked as solo concerts. I would play the first 30 minutes of so by myself, and then I'd introduce her. At least one time, she even came up out of the audience. It was great fun! She'd come up and do maybe Prodigal's Return, and just blow people away. Then we'd do some more together, and the whole thing had been kicked up to a higher level. It used to be really fun to surprise people that way. Then, of course, we got booked together and arranged a more normal set.
Recording
As far as getting the chance to record, we totally had it easy. We didn't have to shop ourselves around, make demos, make deals, beg for a chance, or anything like that. We just played wherever we could and tried to help people with our music. Sometime in late 1978 or maybe early '79, Chuck Fromm at Maranatha simply asked us out of the blue if we wanted to record an album. We said, Yeah sure, I suppose, and that was that. We submitted a tape of some songs so they'd know what we were planning. We wanted Jonathan David Brown to be the engineer, and in order to do that we worked it out with Maranatha for him to co-produce with me. Maranatha wanted to put it on the new A&S label, as sort of a secular arm of M!M; target the secular market.
As we put the songs together, it became apparent that they told a story; it was pretty easy to arrange them in the right order.
The album took nine months to record. This was definitely a marathon project. It would literally take a book to write down all the ins and outs of that experience. Lots of joys, anxieties, everything.
Several things happened that delayed things. Just before we started, on January 11, 1979, my brother David died and that was difficult for me. I got one cold after another - I was sick so much I went and got a complete physical to see if there was something serious wrong we me. The doctor said I was just unlucky and just shook too many hands.
Then part way through the album, Jonathan had an appendectomy (I remember him sitting in the booth during recovery with aloe vera leaves pressed into his wound!). And Michele got married. Lots of breaks in the action! But we kept at it.
Album Cover
This was supposed to be a story, so we wanted all the lyrics to be written on the inside of a fold-out album. It cost more money, but M!M agreed. Good friend Bob Bennett was working at Maranatha at the time and was assigned to put together the words for the art work. We met at Denny's one day and worked out the main album blurb together. The things we rejected were hilarious: "Almost made a believer out of me" - M.M. O'Hare. Stuff like that. He cracks me up.
I agonized for weeks over what to do for an album cover - how could we express the "misfit" concept artistically, and without being completely hokey? We rejected a lot of ideas about nerd themes (a kid sitting at a playground watching everybody else, things like that) and finally just settled on a picture of ourselves as the safest choice. We did a photo shoot with a white backdrop. We shopped for special clothes for the picture. My standard outfit was jeans, baseball shirt, and maybe a flannel shirt over that. This wasn't all that dressed up, but was indeed a departure for me. It worked out that I got to represent the Misfit (naturally). I would be grinning like an idiot at the camera, and Michele would be walking away.
After we got the main pictures, we goofed around with some joke ones. The idea was for me to look especially goony in some unusual way. So I jumped as high in the air as I could and kept my body straight. The photographer got us as I was just starting to come down, so it kind of looks like I'm levitating with my hair standing straight up. I thought it was artsy. When my dad saw it, he said "What were you thinking?" Obviously, not something in the lines of trying to look good.
One time after the album Michele and I went to see our friend Keith Edwards play drums for Amy Grant at Melodyland (in Anaheim). After the concert, we went backstage to say hi, and somebody introduced us to Amy. She looked at me and said, "Hey, you're not as fat as you are on your album cover." After considerable reflection, I decided it was a compliment. Turns out she had bought the album as she was continuing her college education, and she really liked it. It was weird to think of Amy and the girls sitting around listening to our stuff, but greatly flattering.
The Players and Singers
For the basic tracks, Jonathan brought in some of his favorite players - most from his Oklahoma days - Keith Edwards, drums (who had been in Jonathan's band Seth and had recently moved out to California); Hadley Hockensmith, guitar and bass (terrific player, formerly of Sonshine with Harlan Rogers and Bill Maxwell, Andrae', later Koinonia, for the last several years Neil Diamond); Darrell Cook, bass (often played with Keith, had true perfect pitch). I played piano.
We also added buddies John Wickham, guitar (from The Way and other groups); Alex MacDougall, drums on one song (Selah, The Way, Richie Furay); Kelly Willard, Fender Rhodes (on her song, Hurting people); and Phil Kristianson, B3 organ on The Martyr Song (Archers, the Buddy Band, Amy Grant, Promise Keepers). I added Dave Storrs on guitar for the rockiest sound I could find for Take Me to the Light. Hadley got Dean Parks to play on some things, because they were buddies from Oklahoma and he was already helping out with Bruce Hibbard's album.
We were a bit concerned that we were already pretty clean sounding, and that a studio recording would completely remove any edge we might possibly still possess. So I think it was my idea to get Denny Correll to sing background vocals. Denny was agreeable, and suggested that his brother Tim sing, too. Tim sounded much like Denny, so this was great.
We first rehearsed in Denny's garage, and worked out some harmonies. Then in the studio, with Jonathan's help, Denny and Tim pretty much figured out their own parts. They would sing one part in unison, then double it. Then move to the first harmony part the same way, then to the next harmony part. Then sometimes they'd do the whole thing again, with answer-backs! It took forever (just like with guitar stacking), but it was excellent. I semi-cleverly dubbed them the "Correll Chorale."
Recording
Most of the actual recording went normally. We tried to get a little variety by leaving me completely out of a couple of songs (Hurting People and First Prayer), and letting Michele sing without me on a few songs that we normally did together.
One thing that strikes me funny, was with the Love Hurts/He Gave Me Love medley. My piano part was the basic track, all by myself; drums and bass come in at the very end of the second song, and instead of just overdubbing it, Keith and Darrell had to just sit there through both songs - more than once - waiting to come in; I did feel the pressure.
But the most pressure I felt playing was the basic track for The Moon is Harsh Mistress and He's Asleep. I did the basic track for these, by myself. It had to be pretty much perfect, and He's Asleep had a few little fancy wrinkles, and I knew that Alf Clausen would be basing his score on what I did, and didn't want to embarrass myself, especially in front of Alf. We wanted, for these two songs, for the piano to just be part of the orchestra, and so I played with the soft pedal on.
The Martyr Song was a bit unusual from a musical standpoint, because with piano, B3, and guitar there was just too much going on in the middle ranges. If you took any one of the three out - it didn't matter which one - everything sounded much cleaner; but we didn't want to give up anything. I think we compromised by putting the guitar on the left side or something. The three songs that sounded great in the studio were Martyr, Stand, and Take Me to the Light. You haven't heard a song until you've heard it in the studio with the speakers all the way up! I still remember Jonathan jumping around in the control room.
We recorded Can't Find My Way Home very sparse - with almost exclusively piano, bass, and drums (with just a little synthesizer Jonathan). I really like the way it came out. The piano sounds pretty big. However, it's harder to play exactly together on a slower song, especially when there are big holes; but Keith, Hadley, and I all felt it the same and it worked out.
Lenny Roberts, the producer for my (earlier) Flow River Flow album, said he thought Stand was the best produced song on the album. It turned out very nicely. Keith and Hadley played just great. John Wickham's guitar solo at the end was very emotional, very melodic, like a singer. When my old buddy Bob Bennett heard an early mix of Stand in the studio, I'm told he started to weep - not because he was sad, but because it was so triumphant. Now THAT'S a huge compliment.
We did most of our lead vocals very quickly. We had done some scratch (reference) vocals very quickly right after the basic tracks, and Jonathan kept a even a few of those. Michele was a completely polished, reliable, perfect singer. She usually nailed it right away. I think Love Hurts is the best performance she ever did - just outstanding. We always sang Carry Me Along together, but we did this vocal at the end of recording for some reason, and Jonathan had her sing by herself first, and then I tried to blend with her.
The only major vocal problem I can remember we had was on He's Asleep. This was Michele's signature song, and I'm sure Jonathan wanted something more than the ordinary greatness she always brought to it. He was going for complete transcendence, I guess. I remember I sat outside in the lobby reading a good chunk of The Big Fisherman while she did take after take, for 13 hours. They came up empty! It's absolutely the only time I ever saw Michele doubt her singing ability. Fortunately, she bounced back another day and found a take that would work.
Another interesting recording tidbit. I never knew engineers to splice together separate basic track takes. The rule was, you just played the whole song perfectly all the way through or you did it again. But Jonathan would stay up late at night by himself and try splicing (in those days, these were physical cut-and-tape together) parts of different takes. The levels, tempo, and feel all have to be very close for this to work out. He thus earned the nickname "blade boy", which survives to this day.
About producing. The artist always wants his "vision" to be honored. I was co-producer in the artistic sense - they were primarily my songs, and my picture was on the cover. I wanted it to turn out as I envisioned it. Yet to be a good producer, you have to know a lot about engineering, and Jonathan provided all of that. Significant tension developed over time. On the one hand, I was very nervous that he was going to make everything too pretty - gosh, it was pretty enough already! I already felt a bit unmanly to have wandered far from rock 'n roll, and didn't want to be too cutesy or labeled "The Christian Carpenters." So I wanted to get as much edge and roughness as we could eke out (hence, Storrs' guitar work on Take Me to the Light, and Denny and Tim Correll). Completely valid. But on the other hand, Jonathan rightly viewed me as an amateur as a producer and often didn't trust my judgment. I never did earn the kind of trust that this would take. Again, perfectly valid.
The result is, I think, a compromise that achieved both of our aims. As I look back, I'm glad for my contributions, but REALLY glad for Jonathan's meticulous professionalism. He gave us a great treatment. I'm convinced that if I had had my way, it would have come out amateurish, for sure. When I listen to it now, there's stuff there that is a pure GIFT - not part of my vision, much better. If I had it to do again, I would have dialed down and enjoyed the ride. Which is pretty much my whole attitude toward my music days.