The Dangerous Summer - Mother Nature (June 14, 2019) Album • Page 36

Also, this is the most beautiful thread I've seen on chorus. (Been lurking since the early AP days)

 

Halfway through my first listen, I haven't loved a TDS album this much since War Paint. Really into it so far.

 

Paused this to listen to the Cure livestream but I like what I’ve heard

 

Great work to you and the band! Do you have a personal favorite song on the record? Which song was the most difficult to put together?

 

Whose idea was it to bring back old school Nintendo in Start Over? Where did that initially come from?

 

Run away I wanna run away
A feeling that I couldn't staahhhppp
The seasons all fear that i'm gahhhhoneee
Maybe I fucked it all this time

 

This was a pleasant listen. Didn't pay attention to the lyrics but there's a lot to like here. Hopefully it'll hold up on repeated listens. Very surprised to like something from this band in 2019.



Catholic Girls is still their best song

 

The bridge and ending to Virginia just crushes me. I haven’t had that experience with a song from them like that since Weathered and Surfaced.

 

Mother Nature would be such a natural song for them to slide into the setlist they currently have (though eventually I wanna hear all of these)

 

My vinyl should be arriving today (along with Warpaint on vinyl). Excited to finally give this a listen!

 

I just wish some of it was a lil bit more uptempo. Jusssssst a smidge.

 

I was really proud of It Is Real when we were working on it. Lots of cool moments throughout the record like the reverse guitar on the intro on the last song. Just trying to make things unique and different and not just record a band. Each song had their few days of full emotional immersion and each song felt different and special and memorable. But It Is Real is one that I was like “ok I want this to be like a cute strokes song and somehow feel like the nostalgia of the postal service” so I was like fuck the guitars and bass. Lets just use this tiny white Casio keyboard and then add everything else around it. That just was a transformation from a rock band playing a song into a “Wow this is a song. This is why I play music. I want to get high as fuck and make music and hope it somehow connects with people and makes a positive impact” just great lyrics. The song had to be unique.

Most difficult song was probably Better Light. Only because it’s so simple it was really challenging to dial the right emotion and ambience into the song and also attempt to use only vocals for the track. We only had the first part down and on our last night together I was like “Fuck it AJ. You gotta do a falsetto solo through autotune”. And he killed that one. When I would show people they would cringe and be like “what? This is the dangerous summer?” And I was like “yep” and they would go “are you gonna change that ending?” ...”no what’s wrong with it?” ...”nothing. It’s just totally different”

Took a while for people to understand. So to come here and see people being like wow that song is one of the album’s best and could be a mainstream media single... that means a lot. Especially because AJ screams in a rock band and that song is totally the opposite of that

Also for all the auto tune haters that was my fuck you and “let’s make a bold move here” move and I was so surprised that AJ was like “Fuck yeah let’s do it I love it” absolutely no resistance.

PS I love Auto Tune.

 

Not sure what you mean

 

I haven't listened to this yet, but there's some intentional autotune on Parker's voice during some of the new TSSF album, right? Loved your work on that one btw.

 

Just want to say the transition in Starting Over/Slow Down is so beautifully done. Really good stuff.

 

If you hear auto tune working it means it’s working. If you don’t want to hear it working, sing it better. I’m never intentionally looking to create auto tune artifacts. It’s actually the opposite. Instead I’m doing so much intense listening that the tuned version that sounds like it’s tuned sounds and feels way better than the out of tune version. Again if you hear auto tune working that means the vocal inside of it is either really flat or sharp. So what do you do? Well sometimes that’s the best the artist is capable of doing and and most importantly in the TSSF’s case... willing to do. And or time sensitive scheduling then means all of a sudden we are punching in new vocals on the last day of a record, singing brand new shit for the first time every. Dealing with bad attitudes and unwillingness to sing the new ideas. So you then get a vocal that sounds pretty tuned and an artist who doesn’t want to change it and no more days booked to even fix it. Then I have to hand it over to mix and it’s no longer possible for me to make edits or change or re-record parts. This record has to get done and me freaking out about tuning is only making everyone upset with me for not working faster.

Point is it is what it is.

 

Auto tune can be so cool when utilized correctly, as is the case here

@Samuel Pura Your drum sounds have improved drastically over the years, and this album probably has some of the most interesting work you’ve done yet. What were some of the ideas you and the band had in terms of mic placement, effects, etc (in particular, the end to Starting Over/Slow Down)

 

Was the voicemail in the prologue real? It's so sick.

 

I love Prologue and the way you guys use that voicemail to lead right into Blind Ambition, especially when the guitar kicks. Any insight on where the idea came from? I'm sure it is simple "AJ got it and said hey lets use it" but I think it is super cool and a unique/personal way to start an album.

 

Wondering the same thing, it’s a great intro to the record

 

That song is my favorite story. I basically said to them at the start of the session “I hate acoustic songs. And the label is like we want 2 acoustic songs. And I fucking can’t stand that. So I say why don’t you just sing over a keyboard with nothing else. That’s 10 times cooler than an acoustic song and serves and even better emotion.”

So Matt was playing around on my organ and eventually came up with that little arpeggio. I was immediately like “THAT’S IT. THATS THE ONE” straight portlandia moment. And they all were like “hmm really?” So I made AJ sit down with it for a day and I was like “Think Halsey. Listen to this Benny Blanco song Eastside. You need to have a good pattern and melody. Has to be the same each time. The syllables and the math have to be perfect”

And at the end of the day he was like “i’m Spent. I really tried. I just can’t make that song work” so that was that.

Then weeks later we needed another song to start. So they showed me the demo to what is “Starting Over” And I was like “nah this is lame. This has no bridge. No movement. No defined chorus. No.” And they were all really stoked on it. I was like ok let me just drive home and figure it out.

I remember where I was when I called them on the drive. I just said “ok I think I got it. WHAT IF... we just throw that new song I am trying to make you write at the end of it. Song A, Song B. Neither work on their own... but together they could work!”

And the dudes were silent. Just taking it in. And AJ goes “dude that’s fucking genius we’ll get started”

Next morning I woke up to the demo of the whole song and was like YES!!! LET’S GO MAKE THIS SONG!!!

So I’m just so happy that an untraditional song and structure is lots of people’s favorites. Also with how foreign and strange the song was for AJ to work on at first etc. No bands trust me that much and these dudes were total team players. And because of that we have this song. Literally wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t write it at the studio together etc.

 

AJ and the Autotunes solo record - get on it.

 

Love this insight man. Killer work. Hope you get to work together more in the future

 

It is so WACK to hear that label shit like "make two acoustic songs" is still a legit thing. God, the industry blows.

 

I think its great for people to hear stuff like that. In this day and age its reassuring to know people still leave messages like that to let others letting them know they care and love them and are always there for them.

Thats immediately what I thought about when I first listened to it.