3/15/20

It seems like yesterday when we spent those three days in the studio, Rich, Mike and myself in January 2000 by Joe Grant in his Nashville East Studios in Newark, DE. Recorded in two days and mixed on the last. We rehearsed so much that we only had to stop recording twice because someone messed up. Once on The Witching and once on Metal Witch.

Rich came up with the original "Hoit" at the beginning of the original version of Time to Kill. Which was replaced by a backwards version of the very end of the song's keys and Nylon Acoustic guitar. That Guitar was Joe's and the clean Acoustic / Keyboard ending I'm referring to of that very song was written just after recording the main tracks. The end of the song was, prior to, just the barrage of drums and Guitar you hear before the keys fade in. And to note, all the other Keyboard was improvised and written during recording as well.

I admit that back then that I was not much of a Bassist, and the album could have been better if I had been. But it wasn't as noticeable, at least to me, as it is on Metal Witch during the clean part. I basically doubled the Guitar except in The Beast where it actually drove the song, but I had rehearsed that one before using my Step Brother's Bass.

Now as you may have seen we did record an EP, with Jeff, before we had written what was to be the title track of the mini LP, that being Time to Kill or "T2K". Which I'll get to the double meaning of that in a bit. The album was originally to be called "The Witching", and be a five track EP, but we decided we could do better, which we did attempt a year later. I did record the Bass, but again, it wasn't great and I did mess up a lot due to not owning a Bass or being able to rehearse with one.

Speaking of Bass, the Bass used for the T2K album was a Pearl White Cruise short scale Bass that I borrowed from my friend Rick Tomasetti. The Bass I used for the EP was Jeff's. Now to the double meaning of "T2K" it happened that the title of Time To Kill was on purpose. The year was 2000, and the whole Y2K panic thing was everywhere, so we were guilty of capitalizing on that with "T2K" and it also being technically an abbreviation of Time to Kill.

As Mentioned as much as we rehearsed the other songs, having written most in 1998 and very early 1999, Time to Kill was written very late '99, and we rehearsed it maybe five or six times before stepping into the studio, and we nailed it first take. As was Beast, Spectre and Seventh Sign.

Metal Witch you might notice has a soft Double Bass sound towards the end, well… During rehearsals, and even on the EP, Rich would always play a heavy double Bass part there, but for whatever reason during the T2K recording he didn't and the song didn't sound right without it. The solution, since redoing Drums wouldn't work out right, we put a Kick Drum on a chair and Rich used mallets to mimic the double Kick sound, but obviously not being feet that did it, wasn't as rich and deep.

Mike and I, after Rich had left on the second day of recording, did an improvisational song we would also do after he left practices. Set Her Free, played on Joe's Nylon Classical Guitar, but it wasn't featured on the final album. The very Set Her Free that was made into an Electric version back then as well, but not recorded as a studio version until The Rebirth we released a few years back. There is also a Piano version that we have yet to record as well.

As a note of recognition, the Lead to The Beast was conceived by a former member Renny Johnson, I streamlined it a bit for the final song. It's one of the few leads I can actually play, being I'm not a Lead Guitarist. And also The Beast was conceived from a riff that Jeff had used for his then punk based band's song, but slowed down… a lot… and played in a different position. Also, inspired by Black Sabbath, I admit that I had Ozzy's voice in my head as I was writing the lyrics.

Well, that's all I can think of that would be of interest to anyone as a look into what went into making T2K. Hope it wasn't boring and look forward to releasing some new tracks soon.