Already on their third release in just two years, Nathan Detroit have clearly been on a creative quest to find their best self. Mission accomplished. To be sure, newly released EP Peace Of Mind sees the Wiltshire quintet frothing with melodies and punchy, infectious hooks, the four tracks feel positively jam packed with killer choruses and memorable refrains. Here Callan takes us behind the scenes of the recording and into the studio…
For this EP we booked ourselves in for five days at The Ranch Production House down in Nursling, Southampton with Neil Kennedy. Neil has produced all of the Nathan Detroit releases to date and has done a sterling job on making the band sound the way it does today, so working with him again made sense.
We began tracking back in March. Toby & I arrived late on a Tuesday night to begin tracking drums with Neil. We had already worked on the majority of these tracks in pre-production a few months prior where we played the tracks live off the floor of the Black Lodge. Very little had changed with the songs so we sat down and tapped out some tempos together and tracked with the two of us playing at the same time. We finished very late that evening.
Day 2 started with fixing some drum parts before we cracked on with bass guitar with Kye. The bass tone was unbelievably the dirtiest Kye has played with Nathan Detroit. He managed to track everything in no time whatsoever. He’s by far the most locked in member of the band. We were done early so we decided to chill and have some beers.
Over the next few days we really cracked into tracking the guitar parts for this record. Neil had recently got a new toy to play with which was in the form of a sick Bad Cat guitar amp. We ended up tracking almost the entire EP on this head. The sound was meaty but still had loads of head room and clarity to it. We had no complaints whatsoever.
Over the course of the week it was made apparent that these were the most dynamic tracks we have written has a group. “Clean Guitars” was something we had never played with in our songs before. We worked hard on making sure this translated well with the new EP. Elliot used a lovely Fender Stratocaster to record these parts. It added that bite to the sections as well as character. At the end of the forth day of tracking, Neil had bought Kye a carrot cake to celebrate his birthday at The Ranch.
The fifth day was the last day of tracking. Jamie had been away working whilst we had been recording the EP. He arrived early on Saturday morning to begin laying down his vocals. We don’t always have our vocals one hundred percent written for when we go into the studio. On this occasion we tied up some loose ends and made amends as we tracked Jamie’s vocals. Hearing the lyrics for Every Heart for the first time in the studio will always be a special moment for me. I definitely consider that one of Jamie’s strongest songs.
Sadly, goodbyes were quick as we had a weekends worth of shows to play so we set off straight from the studio. We had some small parts to come back and re-record but the EP was pretty much in the can. It’s such a good feeling to see it now released in its entirety. It’s something we’re more than chuffed with! I personally am excited to see what the future will bring.
Nathan Detroit released Peace Of Mind on the 11th August via Saint November Records.
