GODSMACK - Second Time Around

GODSMACK
Second Time Around

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Rambola agrees: “Sully is such a perfectionist; he wanted the exact groove, the right performance. A lot of leads I did, I’d see him giving me the thumbs down through the window, but he’s a quality-control guy. Sure, it was like pulling teeth to get the tracks right. But it’s good; it’s all for the better of the record.”

L to R: Tony Rambola, Tommy Stewart, Sully Erna, Robbie Merrill
Photo: CLAY PATRICK McBRIDE

Godsmack’s determination not to tamper with the essence of their success—raw vocals, Black Sabbath-influenced riffs, pounding rhythms—kept Awake remarkably under budget. “We only used a quarter of it by not renting a big, big studio or hiring a big-name producer,” Rambola says. “We tried to keep it real, because that’s what has worked for us, so why f— it up? Sully has had a real good idea and focus of the sound he wanted since the beginning, and bringing in someone from the outside could have spoiled it.”

The project took four times as long as the debut, which was recorded and mixed in four weeks. “The methodology was completely different from my end,” says Mudrock, “because we weren’t using my studio [New Alliance is now run by his partner, Alvan Long, since Mudrock relocated to Los Angeles] and we recorded into Pro Tools. I didn’t even own a Pro Tools rig on the first record. It made things better in terms of when you record onto tape, once you record a track, it’s stuck on that reel. If you want to make changes, you have to play it to EQ it, compress it. It’s very old-school and traditional. In Pro Tools, the track is laid out for you on the screen, and there’s so much more you can do. I use Pro Tools as a recorder and editor to tighten guitar mutes, make sure there are no stops or crackling. On the first album we had to jump through flaming hoops to do that.

“I missed the sound of a tape machine on the drums,” he admits. “In a perfect world, I wanted to use a 24-track and transfer that to Pro Tools, but doing so would have entailed buying a $30,000 24-track and using it once. A tape machine compresses everything. The makers would hate for me to say this, but a tape machine mangles the sound and definitely changes it. One of the largest ways analog tape machines change sound is to compress things in a way you can’t get from putting a compressor on a track. Tape makes the round edges softer and fuzzier, particularly on drums. It gives them a fatter sound. I’ve gotten much more used to Pro Tools now, but Sully says that on the next record we do, he wants tape.”

Rambola was also new to Pro Tools, but became a quick supporter of the technology. “You can actually see the music,” he says, “so if you need to fix something, you can do it right there, fix the levels. It’s cool. We didn’t abuse it, though. It’s handy for certain things. I could record 50 guitar solos, see them and twist them.”

With the band recording live in a warehouse, the process was very simple, he says. “We would jam and get parts, then overdub and put leads on. There’s no big secret. We only have three instruments! We were always experimenting. For the guitar leads, we were winging it and experimenting with things as we were going. The beginning of ‘Spiral’ was a really cool guitar sound. It was Sully messing around, plucking notes in the rhythmic pattern of the song. It came up and became part of the track. Spontaneous things happened and ended up on the record.”

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