![]() ![]() ![]() Some of the parts, like the guitar solo at the end – that is the original from the demo. I’d say there’s certain guitar parts that have been rehashed. On this album, specifically, were there parts of older material that found there way into this one? We’ve been talking about doing a b-sides album because there really are some great songs that we had to set aside and say, “Not for now.” We cut up old songs and put them into new ones. Will this other stuff get released in the future or reused?Ībsolutely. It’s too good.” Then we ended up cutting two at the very end, so it would have been a 12-song record. It was very conscious, and we cut a lot of songs. So we divided them up that way and broke it down to what seemed to fit together in some weird, puzzle kind of way. The record came out to be a yin and a yang, that’s how our big whiteboard was in the rehearsal space, because there’s a whole side that was just heavy and dark and nasty, and then there this whole other grouping of songs that were all very pretty or Neil Young-ish with more grooves and stuff. It was like, “All right, we’ve whittled it down to this now.” The songs vary a lot, just like the record does. Every day was another day where you had to cut away at a big piece of wood. It was really difficult to whittle it down to what made it to the record. We did have a lot of other songs and a lot of other ideas that were really great. What kind of stuff was it, and how did you decide what made it and what didn’t? I understand you had a lot of ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor. ![]() It’s harder to relearn them when having to play them live, so I’ll kick myself in the ass for it, but I think the keyboards are great on this record. I challenged myself and my parts, making them a little more complicated than the last time. I used an actual T3 organ, vibraphones and all that kind of stuff, so it was more of a keyboard sound on this album than the last one. Working at Blackbird, we were able to use some amazing old vintage keys. The last record was trying to sound like a guitar, and making some strange noises to compliment the heaviness of those songs.įor this record, we used a lot more natural sounds. I don’t really know very much of my instrument and that’s something I’m trying to learn, which I think is evident on this new record. I’m not a well-versed keyboard player, to say the least. I think on Everything to Nothing my goal was to sound like a guitar. So it definitely added a dynamic to the record.Īs far as keyboards and that kind of stuff, is there less of that on this than your other two albums? What was your role on this album? Songs like “Leave It Alone,” where the strings are predominant – it’s not really a guitar-driven song once you added those strings to it. They tracked everything in three hours, just kind of knocked it out. We got a 12-piece orchestra and went to another studio. I think the strings on this record are beautiful. Just write the whole thing.” A couple weeks later he came to us with this whole orchestration that he played all on his keyboard, so it kind of sounded wonky, but we trusted the fact that certain parts sounded weird because they were played on MIDI. We listened to 20 seconds of a piece he had done at his house and it was beautiful. I’ve never really done it for anybody else, but I’d be willing to take a stab at it.” They’re all Berklee kids, and their singer was like, “I do orchestration. It’s always been sort of a stickler for people, like, “Where’s the violins?” It was actually late in the game that our producer, Dan, was working with another band called Hard Decade. We’ve talked about it before, especially with all the comments that come with being in a band that has Orchestra in the name. At what point in the process did you decide you wanted to do that and what was it like playing around with that element? One of the first things that jumps out about this record is that you incorporate a lot of orchestration. We were able to bring the whole entire volume down a couple of notches, so that we all could all be playing at the same time, but still keep the dynamic different. The vibe on the record changed with Jeremiah leaving and adding new drummers, which opened up a new avenue for us to explore, being able to be quiet but full-band quiet rather than breaking down to just Andy and a guitar. We definitely wanted to change it but we didn’t look at this record with any kind of specific lens, I don’t think, other than wanting it to be the best thing that we could do. Was this a conscious decision or just came out naturally while you were writing? ![]() Simple Math has a pretty different tone than your other two albums. Keyboardist Chris Freeman talks about the conceptual progression behind Manchester Orchestra’s third album Simple Math, the different natures of the group’s sound, and staying true to what you like. ![]()
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