Frontman Joel Byrne of Adelaide-ian psych rockers Wolf and Cub has posted a surprisingly intimate confessional from the bowels of the studio. Wolf and Cub are currently holed up in the ACT with Chris Colonna - frontman and producer of the Bumblebeez - working on the follow up to 2006s Dot Dash/4AD debut
Vessels.
In a
MySpace post dated yesterday he details the difficulty in working with Colonna and the vicious culling process, saying "I'd like to say it was a painless exercise
but it wasn't, Chris is too blunt for me sometimes and as I tend to get a
bit attached to all our demos it can be difficult to take criticism,
especially when your producer tells you a demo, which you had high hopes
for, isn't really that strong, or "just shit" as Chris discreetly puts it." He adds: "There are also a few new new ones that I've been developing
during the tour period so they've been included in the maybe pile, although
I think that's probably Chris' attempt at a peace offering."
He also goes on to explain the difficulties with the new band dynamic, at least in terms of studio work.
"So this week the rest of the band arrived and as soon they came to
terms with the cold conditions, the mice and Chris Colonna we jumped
straight into tracking. Right now Tommy, who plays bass, is laying down his
parts, not without hassle though unfortunately. His bass seems to be
playing up a bit and it's not responding the way it normally would so we've
had to drive to Canberra for a minor repair, thankfully Canberra is only an
hour away so it hasn't put too great a dent into the schedule. In the
meantime however it's allowed new member, Marvin and I to go over some new
songs and get him feeling comfy with the arrangements. Speaking about
Marvin actually, he's under enormous pressure from everyone to step up to
the plate and provide some backing vocals on this recording. It's turning
out to be a bigger hurdle than anyone had counted on unfortunately as Marv
has developed an insane insecurity complex which seems to be crippling his
attempts to sing so fuck knows how we're going to get his angel like voice
present on this album. Its very frustrating actually, because he can really
sing and it would really add another element to the w&c palette, let alone
make my job allot easier. I think alcohol is going to play a big part.
Take Care, photos coming very soon.
Love Joel"
Drama. Sounds like Colonna is determined to earn his keep. Wonder if there's incense, bear skin rugs and Grande Latte cups littered about jacuzzi. Colonna
is Mixerman?
Read the full post here.