Wake The Dead - Behind the Scenes
Part One
Hey friends,
I've got a new album coming down the pike. And the first single Wake the Dead is out there. And available here there, and everywhere.
Here's some candid photos from the making of.
Photos by William Wayland and Daniel Strickland.
People are wasted. Sucked dry. But I’m not. I’m lucky in that I had a batch of songs I was excited about recording. And that’s really key to the whole record making process. Plus pulling together a group of talented players. I’ve said it a million times. All a poet needs is a pen, and a painter just a brush and some paint. But this photo says it all. It reminds me, people, that a singer-songwriter needs an army.
Everybody has their own way of charting songs out. I’m a self-taught functional illiterate. I should’ve signed up for school band. But where I grew up, walking to and from school with a clarinet case? I don’t know if I could’ve handled the ridicule.
Lots of ways to start a session. You can start it with a burrito and a blunt. Whatever it takes.
Musicians can be moody. But nothing holds a candle to how moody a vintage Echoplex can be. James DePrato got this sucker to behave though.
“Shot in the back in the ditches of Tecate/ 35 bodies lying in the highway/ Children forced to dig the graves of their fathers/ Sally was a cop, now she's a soldier”
Cormac McCarthy was asked about writing Blood Meridian. His brutal epic of the past in which he kept one foot firmly planted in a doomsday future. He said, “If I wrote about violence in an exaggerated way, it was looking at a future that I imagined would be a lot more violent. And it is. Can you remember twenty years ago having beheadings on TV? I can’t.”
I hesitate to think about the future from here.
Producer Brad Jones showing Alejandro Gomez, aka Flaco el Jandro, a different chord voicing. Brad and I have been working together for ages. There’s a trust there. He has that quality. Whatever it is: when I see him on the other side of the glass I want to please him.
James can play anything with strings on it. I bet he could squeeze music out of a barbed wire fence. For real.
It sounds simple, what Joaquin Zamudio Garcia does, but not everyone can: 1) play the right order of notes, 2) with the right duration of each, 3) with the right tone, 4) in the right octave, and 5) repeat that pattern endlessly.
There’s a an unspoken bond to being in a band with someone and traveling the world. We all end up wearing the swag we’ve picked up on tour. In this case, Vicente Rodriguez is sporting a Natalie’s T-shirt. If you’re ever in Columbus, Ohio? Check out her pizza. Yeah, Natalie’s. Well worth the checking.
That’s nine people playing at the same time. If you count Vicente in his booth, and Mario and Ricardo Cortez of Qiensave. That’s a spicy meatball!
Matt Winegar is one of the main architects of this project. We spent a lot of time hanging around and listening to records at his place in Austin. And playing pinball too. When we weren’t exploring the Latin music scene there. All kinds of characters came in and out of that little garage studio of his. We were flying blind into this music. But thanks to Matt’s patience we eventually found our groove and mapped out much of this record together. I like to surround myself with people smarter than me. Matt is gifted.
To be continued…
–CP
Really enjoyed this one. I always enjoy Chuck’s substacks but this behind the scenes business was very cool.
❤️👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻