UTG Track-By-Track: OWEL Discuss ‘Every Good Boy’

Today is the day many indie and alternative rock fans have been waiting months to see arrive. After a lengthy period of promotion, coupled with a huge outpouring of support from the press, OWEL have released their highly-anticipated Every Good Boy EP through our friends at In The Cloud Records. It’s a release nearly everyone on our staff cannot stop spinning, and we are thrilled to be hosting the exclusive track-by-track rundown of the entire album.

What’s that? You still need to be introduced to OWEL? Allow us to help:

Every Good Boy is a release we see many people talking about all year long, and below you can read the stories and experiences that influenced the record’s creation, as told by vocalist Jay Sakong. If you dig what you read, and we certainly believe you will, head over to the In The Clouds store and purchase Every Good Boy for your personal music collection.


Every Good Boy Track-By-Track

Every Good Boy Does Fine

We have a lot of songs that start from a very small place and then build and build. As much as we love that approach, we thought it would be refreshing to have a song that just kicks in early. “Every Good Boy Does Fine” is definitely one of the poppier songs that we’ve ever written, but I don’t necessarily think of pop as a bad thing. Many of the songs that I love live within a pop format. I guess my idea of the word is pretty broad.

When we started recording drums for this song, I loved the sound of the room so much that we decided to record the 4 part harmony, glockenspiel, and guitar that you hear in the intro in the same room. I think it gives it a nice live feel, to have everything played in the same room with the same reflections.


Razors

We were really excited to utilize the piano at VuDu studios. It had a lot of warmth and depth, which I was surprised about because it’s an upright. I like that you can hear my chair squeaking and the keys rubbing together in the intro. I think little things like that really bring a recording to life.

I was kind of dreading tracking the violins and viola for this song because the ending gets so intricate and busy. I thought it was gonna be a pain in the ass, but Jane really just breezed right through it. I almost want to release a strings-only version of this EP because there are so many layers throughout all the songs that may be easily felt, but aren’t so easily heard.

By the way, Mike Watts (the producer) was our guest musician for this song. That’s him on the tambourine at the end.


Flying Man

When we were tracking guitars for this song, we actually started from the end and worked our way backwards. We knew the ending had to be the biggest part, so we didn’t want to get there and realize there was no more room to get bigger. So as we went backwards, we dialed back the gain.

The drums were played with a normal stick in the right hand, and a plastic brush in the left. We wanted a nice washy sound for the snare without losing the attack on the cymbals.

This isn’t really a song that showcases the strings section as much, but it’s coated with strings throughout. We wanted the violins and violas to be like a blanket over the whole thing.


All the World’s Asleep

In the earliest stages of writing this song, we were going for a doo-wop sound. Somewhere along the way it got morphed into a piano ballad. Since we don’t have a piano on stage when we play it live, we play it the doo-woppy way. I’ve always liked when bands can have completely different version of their songs. There’s an alternate version of a Pixies song called “Wave of Mutilation” that I really love. It’s a lot slower than the version most heard.

I used the cello bow on the guitar a lot for this song, which is what that whale noise is. The drums are pretty minimal until the end. We broke down the drum set into different percussive elements, so that Ryan could approach the song like a percussionist would, and not be restricted by what he could do on a drum set. The piano, strings, glockenspiel, and drums were all recorded in the same room.


Written by: James Shotwell

James Shotwell
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