Jeff Dean from Chicago's Four Star Alarm recently posted a lengthy recording update. The band is now mixing with J Robbins (Against Me!, Dismemberment Plan, member of Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Government Issue).
I had been talking to J Robbins while this whole process was happening,and he was real excited about the idea of mixing our record (fucking crazy!). So before I knew it, I was in Magpie Cage studio with J. mixing this thing. J brought a completely new take on the recording,and I think the record is better for it. So what now? We have been going over the mixes, figuring out a couple adjustments and after that is straightened out we are sending it out to be mastered. We are hoping to have it back in our hands by the beginning of September, it's being mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side.
Four Star Alarm is Jeff Dean (ex the Story So Far, Tomorrow's Gone and current member of the Bomb) on guitar, Greg Mytych (ex the Reputation, current Horace Pinker) on bass, Theodore Moss on vocals and Erick Kane (current Strike Anywhere) on drums. They released a two song 7" last year via Underground Communique Records and in 2006 issued their debut EP via Thick Records.
I (Jeff) just got back from Baltimore where I was mixing our first full length record with J. Robbins! To be honest, out of every band I have ever been in, I think this is the best record I have ever had anything to do with. I couldn't be fucking happier! Its taken 7 months for us to get this thing together.
Here is a quick run down: We got back from a couple westcoast dates with Samiam at the end of Feb. and went right into the studio. Eric was leaving for a tour with Strike Anywhere, so we had to get the drums down in 3 days. We recorded all the music with Andy Gerber @ Million Yen Studios(Smoking Popes, Local H) here in Chicago, so we knew he would do a great job. Eric really came through on the drum side of things and breathed new life into some songs that had been kicking around for a long time.
Three weeks later, I started laying down guitars. I usually just plug in the old Les Paul to the Marshall and blast it,but this time I really wanted to add more to the songs… This ended up taking awhile,but I think I did a good job with coming up with additional ideas in the studio. Andy really helped this! The guitars sound fucking massive!!!
A few weeks later, it was Greg's turn to throw down the bass. In typical Greg fashion, he knocked it out quick. He is good like that. So it took awhile after that to get the vocal end down. We needed to find a producer,and we were fortunate enough to get Earl Talbot Jr. to come in and help. We were on a real tight budget(we paid for this ourselves), but Earl was able to work with what we had. He also was able to get his friend Chris Harden @ IV Labs studio to record the vocals. We really owe him for that one! We were lucky to get a lot of great people to help out with this recording. Ted went into the studio a few weeks ago,and did the vocals in about 3 days. he killed it and the vocals came out amazing!
I had been talking to J Robbins while this whole process was happening,and he was real excited about the idea of mixing our record (fucking crazy!). So before I knew it, I was in Magpie Cage studio with J. mixing this thing. J brought a completely new take on the recording,and I think the record is better for it. So what now? We have been going over the mixes, figuring out a couple adjustments and after that is straightened out we are sending it out to be mastered. We are hoping to have it back in our hands by the beginning of September, it's being mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side. Wow !!! I guess that is more like the "long" version of everything, but believe me its a lot more complicated and drawn out than I explained it.
Anyway, we will probably post a couple of the songs here once its mastered. To be honest,I'm not sure when the record is going to available…. We are in between record labels right now, but hopefully we will have that figured out soon!
Thanks for sticking with us!
Jeff/4SA