That attention to finances (and a puckish sense of humor) also in part explains their choice of studio. Must’ve Been High was recorded at Ironwood in Seattle, a small neighborhood studio where one doesn’t have to vie with R.E.M. for dates. (It’s also where the Steve Earle sessions took place.)
“God love ’em,” Randall sighs. “They wanted to do this record, but they had their minds made up that they wanted to do it in a certain way. And I’m a big believer in the self-realization that comes through the learning process.”
“We made Randall come to Seattle,” Eddie cackles, “and totally cut his legs off at the knees. He’s used to working in good studios, with all the equipment necessary to make a good sounding country record. Right away we lose a track off the machine, so it’s the finest 23-track studio available. There were tape glitches, so we had to redo guitar parts, the tracking sheets were a mess, everything was a mess. By the end of the recording, Randall’s lobbying a little bit stronger each day: ‘I have to mix this in Austin.’ ”
And so they did. Eddie hangs his head, a little bashful at the memory. “Yeah, we had to re-record some stuff. He was almost always right. Every time he would say something, and we would go, ‘God, that sounds wrong,’ by the end of the recording we were like, ‘Damn, you were right.'”
“We learned a lot from that guy,” Heathman says. “It was frustrating enough, just because there’s so much space on a country record as it is, and we’re so used to filling space, that it was [weird] just trying to watch it come together. He’s done it, plenty of times, has a vision of what it’s going to become. We’re like, ‘It’s nothing yet, what the hell is going on?’ Then a week later it sounds kick-ass.”
“Like this amp, that amp,” Eddie nods, laughing. “In rock, this amp sucks. I don’t want to put my guitar through that amp. And Randall’s like, ‘Just try the amp.’ ”
“One of the things that we were all adamant about,” Randall says, “was keeping this a Supersuckers record. That it sound like the Supersuckers. And when you look at who actually played on the record, with the exception of steel guitar and fiddle, and one guitar solo, it’s the Supersuckers.”
That meant learning to approach playing and recording in different ways for the veteran punk band. “When they make the records that they normally make, they make that music so often that there’s less of a discovery process in terms of tonality and style and execution,” Jamail says. “They began to learn quite a bit as we got into the studio. Spatial relationships and tonality and rhythm and time and tempo are critical components to building this house, and they started hearing and seeing them really develop.”
The challenges of playing slower country music also forced the other Dan, the drummer who calls himself Dancing Eagle on the album credits, to come up with a different kit. And, as a happy byproduct, it rescued the ‘Suckers new drum tech from a career in fast food. (The 19-year-old also made the drums Dan played on this record.)
“It’s a lot different,” Dancing Eagle nods, though he seems a bit surprised anyone’s asking the drummer a question. “And I don’t think I used any drumsticks on this record, just brushes and these wacky little…not mallets, they’re like tiny brushes, almost, only they’re wood. They’re just like little tiny bundles of wood, like you’d tape a bunch of chopsticks together, only they’re even smaller than that. It just gives it a softer but wider sound.”
That softer and wider sound does not mean the Supersuckers are about to abandon their punk past altogether. Hardly.
“It’s an intermission,” Heathman offers.
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It’s part of what, hopefully, will be a good musical career. It’s something that now, hopefully, will enable people to think of something other than just screaming and yelling rock ‘n’ roll all the time with the Supersuckers. I’d like to be more like a mix tape that still has a cohesive element to it. It’s still one band, but not so much the same all the time.”
Grant Alden, like the Supersuckers, is a Seattle grunge survivor.
