Haunt demo

We were rehearsing at Tony Nesci's one Thursday, and out of the blue he just asked us if we'd like to record Haunt tomorrow night for nothing. We obviously said yes, as we were at the time contemplating spending $500 to record over a weekend.

It was pretty much a rush job. We did a few practices, then we played it, only recording the drums. Wayne, Andrew and myself were just audible on the drum track. After that, I recorded my guitar parts. I did about 5 takes, for which two were going to be used. I had a lot of trouble with the start, as Mark went slightly off. Then Wayne did three or four takes, with Tony telling him all the time that he was out of time. Then Andrew did a few vocal takes, and that was it.

Andrew and I came back the following Wednesday, to supposedly mix it. But Tony had already done two mixes, which sounded better than the one we did, and he then babbled on about musicians not being able to mix, and how they should leave it to professionals like himself! He then said Andrew sounded awful dry, without any reverb, which pissed Andrew off. But we were quite happy with what we had. We then sent it into (local radio station) MMM, who then never played it. But we got something we are all pretty happy with for nothing, so that's all that really matters.

Postscript: 

This is the best recorded version of our best song, as distinct from being the best performance of this song. Although the song didn't evolve much structurally between this recording and the time I left the band, the dynamics gradually evolved and improved. 

I played my Rickenbacker for this recording. Soon after I switched permanently to my strat, which I found more versatile and easier to play. But the Ricky worked well for this song as it was performed at this time.

I had the intro riff before I started in the band. I played it at one of my first rehearsals, and although Andrew came up with the first verse and melody quickly, bassist Hamish and drummer Andrew somehow conspired to turn it into a dirge! I resurrected the riff once Mark and Wayne joined the band. Mark came up with something close to the eventual rhythm almost immediately. Wayne worked out a bass-line pretty quickly, and Andrew improvised the second verse - and we suddenly had a new song. And one which we quickly realised up the ante!

Unfortunately, the only recording of this demo I have is the the one I recorded when it was played on local radio station MMM (now 3D Radio)....so they did eventually play it, despite my protestations above. Apparently it go to number 15 on the request charts! I was never able to confirm this myself but I'm happy to accept that it did!

Haunt (demo)