Punk energy and a click-track aren't really something that go hand in hand ...
SPY are a Californian band developing a reputation for a ferocious live show, so who better to record them than Jack Shirley, a recording engineer who’s developed a keen sense for capturing the essence of bands live and on the floor?
Working out of his studio Atomic Garden in Oakland, CA, Jack Shirley has been developing his own style and workflow for a while now, Atomic Garden having evolved over a few locations and a number of years. Known for recording heavyweights Deafheaven and Jeff Rosenstock amongst others, Shirley finds himself recording punk, metal and alternative bands, often doing it all without a computer, at least not until the finished recordings are digitised for archiving and mixing.
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SPY’s forthcoming EP Seen Enough was recorded this way, the band ripping through all six songs in less than a day. Shirley’s process has the band all in the same room, amps isolated by baffles, but making space for eye contact, energy and bleed that gives his recordings excitement that’s otherwise unattainable.
“It was our first time doing it that way,” says Peter, SPY’s frontman, referring to the band recording live. “We basically felt like that would be the best sound for our band. We felt like that would translate best from the live show, basically. I always felt like there was a weird gap between our recordings and how we sounded live. We preferred the live iteration of the band over the recordings.”
“We wanted to make something that better represented that.” he concludes.
We shift immediately to the reality of recording a punk band live, dealing with energy, noise and sheer volume, and Jack explains his process.
“It just dawned on me that there’s a band in this week, who’s recording the same way [SPY] recorded. Hang on one sec, I’ll take you through the studio.”
Jack lifts his phone from a desk and walks through his control room, a huge API console at its heart, audio lines running from his tape machine on the floor as he wanders to the live room via an isolation booth.
“Most bands these days have been opting to record, not only live, but all in the same room all at the same time—amps and drums and everything. This is basically one half of the live room we’re in.” Jack explains.
The image on our Zoom call pans out, revealing a drum kit roughly in the centre of the room, with tall, thick baffles surrounding the drum throne, guitar and bass amps tucked behind them to prevent bleed into the drum mics.
“Everybody’s facing each other like it’s band practice, basically. We’re just doing a little bit of baffling and keeping the bleed down, but this has become a pretty standard setup for live stuff. The biggest selling point is they don’t have to wear headphones! So it’s no headphone and live to tape. Especially with bands like SPY where it’s really high energy music, and you’re trying to capture that, it’s really hard to manufacture that in the studio.”
Jack concedes they didn’t do vocals live with the band, Peter opting to isolate his performance, and Jack acknowledges it’s way harder to do. SPY’s intense music would cause Peter to burn out his voice pretty fast if the band wanted to do multiple takes.
“We did it in a day, right?” Jack recalls, to a grin from Peter.
“Yeah, half a day basically.” states Peter.
Jack speaks further to how well prepared SPY were, the band being truly ready to record, a well-oiled machine that made for great performances and therefore great recordings.
“Usually the tracking is all done analogue, the computer isn’t being used during the tracking. But then eventually, for most people, the 2” tape gets transferred into Pro Tools and we’ll do some clean up editing, mostly just cleaning up noise at the beginning and ends of songs. Not performance editing.” he clarifies.
Jack explains from here that his mixing process is hybrid, the signal going through his console and some outboard, then back to 2-track tape for mixdown.
Turning to the vocals, Peter explains that despite recording some vocals with Jack at Atomic Garden, he wasn’t happy with how he sounded. He demo’d some vocals elsewhere, and liked the energy and feel of the demo.
“It was just in our practice space with a friend.” says Peter. “Something about the studio setting—it’s always stress inducing for me.”
“We practiced with [live recording] in mind.” Peter begins. “Everybody’s gotta know what they’re doing at all times, even down to the little stuff, the feedback here and there. Who’s playing the guitar break here, is it Drew or Cody, y’know?”
“The little details had to be figured out beforehand. Usually if you’re recording instrument by instrument, those don’t matter so much, but in this setting it was important to think through that a little bit beforehand.”
We speak a bit further to SPY’s sonic expectations, if they had a sound in mind or references heading into the studio. Peter praises Jack for the final product.
“In all fairness,” Jack responds. “It’s just how they sounded in the room. My capture is relatively transparent, they did great.”
“As pressure inducing as it might be, the guitars and bass can still punch in, and fix things. It’s not that crazy. I’ve found bands really respond well to that set-up. When you’re doing things one at a time, it can feel very much like you’re under the microscope of it all, any inconsistency can feel like a mistake that needs to get fixed.”
On this project, Jack identifies himself as purely an engineer. SPY arrived with finished songs, rehearsed and practiced, and his job was to capture that. It’s not always the case with everyone, but SPY’s EP Seen Enough didn’t need a helping hand.
Seen Enough is available on Closed Casket on Feb 21. You can keep up with SPY on Instagram on @spy.worldwide or with Jack at @_the_atomic_garden_
