Writing and recording Easier Said Than Done for Deep Salvage.
(Please use the player below to listen to Easier Said Than Done whie you read!)
Talk about an appropriate title! This song was BY FAR the hardest to write. It didn’t start out that way, though. Rather, just as with the other songs, Dave Tutin sent the lyrics, I grabbed The Maton (all hail!) and within short order a song was born. Or at least that's what I thought. As I listened back to my first demo something nagged at me. I played it for Catherine, she proclaimed it a bit boring. I sent it off to Dave, he responded with a bit less enthusiasm than he had to the other demos. I was crushed, but I knew the concerns were valid. The problem was the chorus and after many, many, many nights of plucking my guitar and humming melodies on the living room couch I had it! Not.
In the end, I think I recorded four or five more demos, each with a different chorus, before I finally hit on the chorus that's in the song now. Writing the middle 8 was the same way. Arduous. Anyway, finally I was happy and commenced to have Tim Young record the guitars. We started with the acoustic, and for a reference style I suggest Angie, by The Rolling Stones, because it has a pattern that somehow never quite repeats, a technique I truly love. I also referenced a few Eagles tunes for the guitar part in the chorus. Now, the Eagles are fucking wimps (except for Joe Walsh, he is a badass motherfucker, no question) and I didn’t want to polish Tim's grit too much, but, well, I do like a melodious electric part and the Eagles do those very, very well, so…
Next up, Andy Korn brought The Thump to the beat and Sam Bevan tightened down the groove with his melodic bass playing. For vocals, Dave Brogan (in photo) was the man for the job, I just knew it. Once his work was done, I had Larkin Gayl come in to Hyde Street to do harmonies, but for the days before the session I was a little nervous. I was not sure what the harmony part should be. Fate smiled on me, though, and while recording a guide vocal for Larkin, I hit on the idea of holding "easy" a little longer than the lead vocal. Larkin ran with it and… the song still wasn't done. Something was missing. In the end, it was simply a matter of adding one more vocal, and Josh Fix was the vox of choice. He added some high stuff, some low stuff and some more stuff and in the end, Jaime and I pruned a few takes to let the song truly emerge.
Click here for Dave's take on lyrics.