Carl Broemel, Evil Urges EPK 2008"Some places have no vibe and great gear. Other places have great vibe and no gear. We met with a couple guys from the label at the cabin, and it was good just to talk about it. I’m really excited about the scope and possibilities of this record. There are so many directions we could go. I just want it to be weird."- Jim James
(Magnet Magazine interview, September 2007)
The band recorded the album at Avatar Studios, in Manhattan, New York. Tom Blankenship said in an interview with The Aquarian Weekly that the band intentionally set out to have a different recording environment than the last time.
(The Aquarian Weekly interview, June 2008)
However though the band knew they wanted an urban environment, at first the band was undecided on where exactly they wanted to be. Producer Joe Chiccarelli then suggested Avatar Studios in New York City (EQ). The studio was chosen not only for the gear available or the convenient location, but also because of its multiple (five) spacious iso booths (EQ).
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges EPK 2008
The band chose to use Avatar's Avatar’s Studer A-800 MARK III 24-track tape machine for the majority of the tracking (EQ).
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
They then decided to record each song from the top-down, collect multiple takes and subsequently comp together the best performances (EQ).
"We’ve worked at Allaire before in upstate New York and it was definitely out in the middle of nowhere. It took like fifteen minutes just to drive up the hill. And the records before that were all done at the farm. We’d always been kind of secluded. So we really wanted to switch it up this time. All of us were really excited to go to New York to do it in a big city. I think we all wanted to experience it as well personally. So the prospect of spending a month living in Manhattan was pretty enticing."- Tom Blankenship
(The Aquarian Weekly interview, June 2008)
However though the band knew they wanted an urban environment, at first the band was undecided on where exactly they wanted to be. Producer Joe Chiccarelli then suggested Avatar Studios in New York City (EQ). The studio was chosen not only for the gear available or the convenient location, but also because of its multiple (five) spacious iso booths (EQ).
“We were going to record bass, drums, two guitars, keyboards, and a lead vocal, all live. We had to be able to isolate everyone. We also wanted a lot of space for each player so we could easily audition different amps and keyboards on the spot.”- Joe Chiccarelli
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges EPK 2008The band chose to use Avatar's Avatar’s Studer A-800 MARK III 24-track tape machine for the majority of the tracking (EQ).
“We used Pro Tools for additional tracks of horns, strings, background vocals, etc. But all of the tape editing was done with a razor—old school.”
- Joe Chiccarelli
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges EPK 2008
"We did the guitar and vocal overdubs in Pro Tools so we didn’t have to link up two tape machines. It’s the best of both worlds. I just wish that there was another way to meld the sound quality of tape with the workflow advantages of digital. But with anything digital you’ll always have the problem of people infinitely editing and f**king around. We spent the first half of these sessions without a computer running. It made things much simpler."- Jim James
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
They then decided to record each song from the top-down, collect multiple takes and subsequently comp together the best performances (EQ).
“They’re such good players that it wasn’t an issue, but sometimes the chorus is a little better in take four and the bridge is better in take three and you like the outro from take seven . . . we wanted to leave ourselves with lots of options.”
- Joe Chiccarelli
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
"We tried to go for the middle road between banging it out and being surgical, I believe you have to have a certain spontaneity and then capture it, harness it, and get surgical on its ass [laughs]. [Making an album] is like a blacksmith pounding out a sword— you have to put a lot of labor into the process, but if you pound it too much, you can ruin the sword."
- Jim James
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
(EQ Magazine interview, December 2008)
In an interview with msnbc.com the band describes the studio as both uncomfortable and cramped, but they also point out that this kept them focused on the task at hand.
"It was really a hard record. Parts of it were fun, but it wasn't a fun record: We weren't sitting around laughing. It was like we went in everyday for 12-hour shifts... it was much different from any other record in that all the other records were spaced out."- Jim James
(msnbc.com interview, August 2008)
"It wasn't pretty all the time [but] it was beautiful in hindsight"- Patrick Hallahan
(msnbc.com interview, August 2008)
In a 2008 Aquarian Weekly interview Tom Blankenship further comments on the work environment, comparing it to previous recordings.
"It was a good work environment because we spent twelve hours a day locked in a studio from eleven to eleven or twelve to twelve or whatever it was. It was different because before everything was more relaxed. You just kind of strolled into the studio whenever you woke up. If a couple guys wanted to stay up late until 2:00 a.m. and work on something they could. If you wanted to wait until it was really late at night and light some candles and look out over the mountains or look out over the farm and record a song, you could do it. It was different here because you had these twelve hours you had to work. That was it…It was more like you just focused on what you had to do and spent a day or two on a song tops knowing that maybe you wouldn’t get the chance to re-visit it again. So there was a certain amount of pressure that added, which I found nice and freeing in a way. To have everything structured and set in stone. You know how your work day was going to go, how your work week was going to be."- Tom Blankenship
(The Aquarian Weekly, June 2008)
In an 2008 interview with The Star Patrick Hallahan made a similar observation.
"We secluded ourselves from the world and put together the potential songs for the album, and then sat on it for about two months to let it marinate, and then went to Manhattan and did completely the opposite of what we normally do, and worked in a studio that only allowed us to work for 12 hours a day. We were in the middle of the lion's den in midtown Manhattan. It was an amazing experience. It was certainly different from what we're used to, where we're removed from everything (in Kentucky) and have complete control over when we want to record, so it definitely lended itself to a different outcome."- Patrick Hallahan
(The Star interview, June 2008)
