During the summer of 1998, we had unconsciously been heading toward the goal of making recordings in preperation for making an album. Previously, when I headed back to school the band would die and a short "winter" would set in. This time the band element was still growing. Within days of school starting, I had made the CDs of our home demos and gave copies to Eric, Ryan Gill and Ryan's studio engineer and friend Chris Hughes. I had a gut feeling about Ryan and Chris... I'd worked for them as a guitarist for a project before, but it was a country demo for a local singer. I knew Ryan & Chris were itching to do a rock project; something to up the ante. We were just that. They were basically unproven potential and so were we. In my mind, that meant we fit together.
I had been in Quinn Loggins' band briefly with a tall, quiet bass player named Alex Stevens. Alex was and still is a very humble musician. Which is part of what makes him so great. He had a great attitude and learned new material QUICKLY. I asked him to play bass for us in the studio and he agreed... all I had to do was set a date.
Ryan called a meeting and there were Chris and I at Ryan's... we talked for maybe two hours about everything I wanted to do. We even did rough track sheets. All this was to achieve a perfectionist approach to the studio. Ryan realized that I was getting into an overly creative frame of mind and would probably get easily distracted with all the gadgets and toys in the studio. He was probably right. We nailed down everything I wanted to record and we even worked on lyrics. We talked about song order... even the order in which we'd record them. Ryan also convinced me that doing an album in this fashion (free) would take years. He wanted to do 3 or 4 songs. We chose the 4 songs. I went to school and booked time for Sunday, November 15th from 2-9pm. We arranged a practice for the day before, Saturday so that the 3 of us could work out the songs. I gave Alex a CD of demos for him to learn the 4 songs we'd be doing.
Back in Montgomery, Eric was getting nervous... surely he was feeling the pressure. He hadn't played since the last time we did a demo. He set up his drums at Millstone and practiced like crazy to the CD. The time was nearing to record. We could all feel this tension building like a volcano about to erupt. The rest of our lives were about to begin.
Friday the 13th of November was like any other day. It was cool and rainy. Around 7pm, I got a call from my friend Steve Short. Steve was an intern at this amazing studio out in the country called "The Castle". They don't call it The Castle for nothing... a mobster built this gigantic home out in the hilly Franklin countryside. It was designed to look like a castle. And it does. I could hardly believe Steve when he asked if we'd like to record there all day Saturday. It turns out that the studio was going to be empty that day anyway and we might as well record there. Steve was to be our assistant engineer at Belmont on Sunday... that's how he knew we were up for it. With a few quick phone calls everything was set. Except that Eric was 300 miles away and we were going to start at noon... only hours away!
making the record:
I finally got in touch with Eric and he arrived at Belmont around 12:30. Not bad. Alex and Eric followed me to the Castle, where Ryan, Chris and Steve were waiting for us. Yes, I did miss the Castle when we drove right by it. But we came back and started recording. When everything was all set up, I had an array of about 7 guitars to choose from and 3 or 4 amps. The headphone mix was starting to work, and I could hear Alex and Eric jamming. It was, indeed like magic. I couldn't see either one of them, but when I started soloing it felt just like the old days only better. We plowed quickly through "Something New" and "Magnificent". "Come Inside" gave us a little trouble. We weren't nervous at all... we were in the groove. The warm, homey vibe of The Castle made us feel like we were recording in a living room. Which we kind of were. If we wanted a break, we went into the kitchen. Most studios are really nice and feel like doctor's offices. The Castle is a first-rate studio (something like $2000 a day) and it feels like home. There is no other way to describe it. It takes all your worries away and lets you concentrate on the music. It has beautiful hardwood floors, stone walls and windows looking out on the green hilly countryside. Giant rugs cover some floors and tables with burning candles decorate large rooms. It added to the dreamlike state we were in. After getting basic tracks down, we did a couple of overdubs and packed up.
The next day we woke up and headed over to Belmont's gigantic Studio A. Actually, it looked amazingly small after being at the Castle the day before. And it felt like a doctor's office. We quickly recorded a couple of takes of "Take Me Back". That was easy enough. We also did the "Intro" for Something New, the quarter-minute of madness at the beginning of the song. Alex took his leave and I set to work on electric guitar overdubs. I think I did them all in 30 minutes. Everything from the crazy sounds on "Intro" (about 7 tracks of me doing weird stuff on guitar) and the solos on "Come Inside" and "Something New" to the rhythm guitars on "Magnificent". We then recorded backward piano and Cymbal swells on "Intro".
After that, we had another couple of months on acoustic guitar overdubs and the solo for "take me back"... and we did the vocals in pairs of songs: "Something New" and "Come Inside", the next session we did "Take Me Back" and "Magnificent". All overdubs were done at Belmont, but thank Steve we did the basic tracks at the Castle!
The songs were mixed in June of 1999, after what seemed like an eternity of trying to get more studio time at the Castle. Finally, we booked time at Belmont and got it over with. I think we were all surprised at how the CD turned out. We were in fact better than we thought we were! We expected something pretty good but we hoped for something great. We got what we hoped for. Eric moved up at the end of July. An issue that we had been avoiding was "what do we call ourselves?" Because the new recordings were definately NOT Drivin South, and since Alex officially joined in May we weren't even the same lineup. Alex is very different from Freddie, both in personality and in his approach to bass playing. We wouldn't even be playing the same kind of music. We had been waiting and waiting for a new name to drop into our laps since we recorded. It never happened. I suggested "The Victorians" but that got batted out as quickly as it came. Eric liked "Ultrasuede" but I didn't like the idea of being named after a song again. Finally, we settled on Superhype because "It doesn't suck too bad." Nobody voted against it, and after 11 months of trying to come up with a name, we took it in October of 1999. Hype is the thing that can propel crappy bands to the top, being overhyped or superhyped is a thing that only a major record label can do. Believe it or not, a Label can make an artist or band famous no matter what if they spend X amount of money. I find that ridiculous but it's true. And yes, our name is ridiculous. That's why I like it. It's so sarcastic, so anti-music business that I think it fits us just fine. Those who dismiss us (or won't book us) because we're a band with "Super-" in the name are not getting the joke. Therefore the joke is on them. Anway, with a name we could finally get CDs made and get some gigs. Little did I know that only a CD would not open all the doors for us...
