We cut this album in 5 days at Sounds Unreal Studios in Memphis with some great people and learned a lot from every one of them. Jim Dickinson produced the effort, and I will never forget we were sitting in the lobby the first night. It was a Monday and I changed the channel on the tv from Monday Night RAW to the Monday Night Football game and Jim scowled at me, “What kind of a cocksucker changes the tv from wrestling to football!” And that’s when we clicked and became friends.
He threatened to whip me with a mic cable the next day if I didn’t sing as hard as I could in the vocal booth. He knew I was a mule and what I responded to in regards to motivation and respect. Robert Hall was the drum tech, and he told us of many stories of his time with Jerry Lee Lewis on the road and such. We were in awe as if Jerry Lee was sitting there telling us of these exploits.
Dawn Hopkins engineered the process, and she is one of the sweetest, smartest most awesome ladies I have ever met in this business. First time I met Jimmy Davis he was beating on a reel-to-reel machine with a hammer in one of the back rooms. Come to think of it we cut this album on reel-to-reel with no ProTools, and man we were so green and downright awful we had no business doing so. But what an experience that was, trying to capture all those songs in the moment.
We were so green we showed up the first day with the clock running proceeded to day-drink and change guitar strings, and pedal batteries and the like. Jim informed us we should do that kind of thing prior to show time or stepping into the studio with a clock running. Jim never charged us by the hour though. Once we became pals, kinfolk rates applied and are still honored to this day with brother Cody and Kevin when we cut Land Of The Free down at Zebra Ranch.
Fred Friction came down on this record and we did a show with him at the end of the week at Murphs, if I recall. He made me put a cigarette out on my tongue before he would let me go on stage because he said every good front man can extinguish their smoke on the tongue while staring at the crowd before him. After his set I was blown away and would have followed him just about anywhere as he left the bar on a orthopedic cane with the two prettiest girls in the place on each arm.
Reba Russell coached me through some vocal stuff, another awesome human being we had the pleasure of meeting. The whole thing was set up by Bob Camp, and I’m forever indebted to Bob because he took me down to Zebra Ranch and introduced Jim and I. Bob was the first one that made me, that made us, believe in ourselves and music. He would introduce us back then at his club as “the best band in the world.” God bless you Bob.