January 6, 2010 Los Angeles - Nassau
Been working flat-out at home in Malibu. I'm pretty burnt out.
I've just remixed the classic Deep Purple album, Come Taste The Band over the New Year, and just recorded six new tracks with a brand new band this last weekend. Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and keyboard wiz Derek Sherinian (tentatively calling themselves Black Country). So, I am pretty wiped out.
The next adventure on my horizon is producing the new Iron Maiden album - this one to be recorded in the Bahamas.
Left the family, sadly, in the early hours of today, and met Jared Kvitka at LAX. He is to be my assistant and the engineer on the new Iron Maiden album. We fly together to Nassau in the Bahamas, where we'll cut the new album at Compass Point Studios. Maiden have made three of their huge albums of the 80's there. Piece of Mind, Powerslave and Somewhere In Time, I believe. It's cold in Nassau when we land -- highly unusual, but all of the States is mired in a "Deep Freeze" and the Bahamas are experiencing the runoff. Studio manager Sherrie Manning meets us at customs and immigration, and once the work permit thing is ironed out, she shows us to our accommodations. In the early evening I see Steve, Adrian and Janick at the local pub for a beer and walk back home. A cold night.
January 7, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas
Bump into Steve in the apartment complex parking lot - I have opted not to have a rental car so Steve kindly takes me to the supermarket and we push trolleys around like two old queens, doing their weekly shopping. Quite a sight! Nassau is expensive -- half a trolley of basics is just shy of $300!
Off to the studio, and the gear has just arrived - mine from L.A. and the band's from England. The crew, Sean, Charlie and Michael begin unloading the equipment. Not much for Jared and I to do at this stage as drums, amps, guitars, etc start escaping their packing cases.
January 8, 2010 Nassau, BahamasDrums are up, Guitar cabs are up -- the day is spent wiring, plugging things in, putting microphones up and doing line checks by studio owner and tech-wiz Terry Manning and Jared. It's a very complex setup -- the studio is basically one big room, and there are not any isolation booths in which to put guitar amps to avoid the leakage into the other instruments as we do record the basic tracks with the whole band playing together live. So 'Arrys bass speaker goes in an adjacent office -- the three guitar cabinets go into a second studio, with about 100 feet of high quality speaker cable running from the amp heads, while Nicko's huge drumkit is in the corner of the main studio, so they can all play together and interact with one another. The little tiki-hut vocal booth, originally made for Mick Jagger in the eighties, is where Bruce will sing to get a little separation, but it's still in the main room and there's just no escaping Nicko's booming bombast! The old Neve V series console at Compass Point isn't on it's last legs, but it's definitely seen better days. We don't use any of the console channels for anything other than monitoring -- every microphone has it's own preamp and feeds the Pro Tools recording system. Most channels won't be recorded with EQ. The exceptions are the kick and snare drums, which have copycat Neve 1073 EQs across them. Nothing much, a little top on the snare and a little scoop on the kick -- as Nicko has no padding and the drum sound very resonant.January 9, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas
Final touches are made to the guitar rigs -- the crew string the guitars and the studio is made ready. We get sounds on everything and the road crew play AC/DC's Highway To Hell to test the systems. Ironic, as the iconic Back in Black album was cut in this very room! We finish up about 6pm, and Jared and I head to Compass Point Resort across the road, and have a drink as we watch American NFL football and the Eagles lose their wildcard game. Jared is from Philly. Michael Kenney drives back from the apartment complex in the rain to pick me up and get me back home. I have hiccups...
January 10, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas
Day off today -- the weather is miserable. Rainy and windy. I'll stay home and watch football, and work on the "Black Country" Hughes/Bonamassa recordings. I have Pro Tools on my laptop, and quite enjoy the zen of working at my own pace, on headphones. Enjoyed watching an NFL playoff game in my apartment and then Steve Gadd, Maiden's Road manager called, saying Bruce and Davey were getting in and wanted to meet me. So off to the bar and dinner and a chat with the lads, then it's off home.
January 11, 2010 Nassau, BahamasStarted tracking today -- was very funny seeing all the band assemble at Compass Point, and they all share a similar headspace, all exclaiming "holy fuck, remember when we were here 25 years ago -- it's still the same!!!!" First we worked on getting everyone's headphones sorted etc. Cut the basics for the ballad Coming Home by 2.30pm, then went on to track called El Dorado. Got 2 takes done, when technical gremlins jumped in -- Adrian's headphones became intermittent, Janick's guitar kept cutting out, then Bruce's vocal microphone fried, then the vocal compressor fried -- but despite all these, we still managed to get 7 takes done -- one of which I'm sure will be quite good enough to begin with. Then at Nicko's bidding, it was off to the Travellers Rest for all of us and a dinner of banana daiquiris and minced crawfish -- apparently band staples 25 years ago.
Haiti just had an earthquake this evening which looks to be devastating... and as we are on a tsunami warning for the Bahamas, we headed back to the studio and retrieved the hard drive for storage on higher ground for the night.
January 12, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas
Cut an awesome track called Isle Of Avalon today. There were no high waves overnight, and no tsunami here, but we hear reports that Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince is in ruins. I donated to Red Cross this morning as they'll need all the help they can get. My family are home in L.A. and are off to Disneyland today. I miss them...
Wednesday January 13, 2010 Nassau, Bahamas
Up early and swam across the bay in front of the apartments. Glenn Hughes rang just as I was leaving, to discuss Black Country, (his new band) -- and then I drove to the studio with Steve, Janick and Charlie (Nicko's tech). I had to stop for a cup of Starbucks en route. Once at the studio, I reviewed the track Isle Of Avalon and overdubbed new guitars with all the guitarists - the Three Amigos - playing together. They have a unique chemistry playing together and the signature gallop in the guitars is a result of their individual rhythms combined. After that was wrapped up, it was everyone back in the room and we cut a new song - Mother of Mercy...
Banana Daiquiris have started something -- Bruce came in this morning with a brown paper bag filled with alcoholic ingredients to brew disaster -- 63 proof rum, etc., and after they had cut the track, Nicko and Bruce proceeded to "experiment" with making the perfect banana daiquiri -- blowing up the blender in a stinky electric puff of smoke in the process! Really......
Finished the new track at about 6.30pm, then Nicko, Bruce and I went in search of more daiquiris, Nicko was on a mission and wanted to take in a bit of adult entertainment and do some gambling, and he wanted me to tag along and be his foil -- so I said I was up for a little fun, but that I needed to get back home by midnight - after all I do have a job to do! A determined Nicko went off and I ended up having a beer with Jan at the end of the night, who's about the most normal of the lot I suppose!! Charlie appeared later after putting Nicko to bed about 10ish, after Nicko had cleared the casino at the Sheraton on Cable Beach and lost a bit of money! That's our Nick......... we do love him so!
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