01/17/24
Hello and welcome to another week inside blackhat Studios. We haven’t had much in the way of shows over the last few weeks, but we are certainly working on a lot of other exciting things behind the scenes. The one real ‘Studio News’ item to give you is that last Sunday we had another recording session with Troy Story Band. I know what you may be thinking…”Didn’t they JUST release their EP?!” Yes, they did, but they had more than enough material for an album. So prepare thyselves for another TSB EP coming up in the near-ish future. I’m not privy to any info on projected release dates at this moment so I can’t give you that, but I’m sooo excited to hear this next one. I got to talk to both Doug and Jenae from Troy Story Band about the recording session. Best part of my job is BS-ing with talented people about them doing what they do best. Here’s what Rhey had to say about the session before I break down my chats with Doug and Jenae:
It’s been a bit of a slow week but we got some recording done on Sunday with Troy Story. I was a bit late to the session because my car refused to start, but I guess I made it in good enough timing. Doug brought Burgers and we all chit chatted about what we’ve had going on in our lives for a bit before we headed into the studio. We finished tracking guitar for almost every song going on Troy Story’s next EP minus one, and discussed project release timelines with Troy to get an idea of when new music will be released. We made good use of the time we had but still managed to finish a little early so we all just bs’d for the remainder of time we had left which meant a lot of jokes coming from every side of the room. (At least I think they were jokes. I can never tell when Doug and Matt are kidding or being serious lol)
Rhey
What cracks me up about this is how true this “are they joking” thing can be with them. We all go wayyy back and boy have we got jokes. Most of them I definitely can’t share here, but if you know us, or even just Matt and Doug…or Greg…there’s probably lots of metaphorical lubricant and generally some inappropriate joke exposure (my sincerest apologies). We try to keep it PC around decent company of course, but yeah…jokes abound. I heavily censor and edit what I include in this blog, but if you want to hear things a bit more unfiltered, we’ve been tossing around the idea of a podcast for a few years and think it might be time to give it a shot. We will see.
For those of you that have never seen all of Matt’s face before, here’s a pic of baby Matt and Doug being awkwardly grabbed by some goofy redhead at a bar…(me) look at his lil cherub cheeks!
Back to business, Troy Story Band has added an up-and-coming guitarist to their line-up and I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about them. I haven’t had a chance to meet Jenae in person yet, but I did get a chance to chat about their experience recording in Da Barn for the first time on one of the songs on the new TSB EP. I didn’t get too deep into things since Jenae and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but I did of course give a small introduction to myself and all the weird shit I do at blackhat before asking a few questions about the session. I asked if they had any expectations of going into the studio for the first time. Jenae replied that yes, and that the studio met their expectations. I got to hear a bit of their backstory as well when making introductions. They’ve been in the scene for a good two years or more and did their first gig opening for Troy Story Band at 18 years old. Now at 20, Jenae just recorded guitar on a track for their latest EP. It almost sounded like one of those coming-of-age success films especially since something similarly serendipitous led to their entry into Humble Crumb as well. When I spoke with Doug about the session he mentioned that he suggested inviting Jenae to record because he really liked the guitar part they added to the song Evil and thought that their contribution to the EP was important. I can’t wait to actually meet the famous Jenae and get to put a face to the name.
When chatting with Doug I was able to get a little more insight into which songs they worked on this round. He mentioned the songs Try as I May, Her Rage, and Evil. He said that his solo on Try as I May was something he was particularly proud of after this session. The goal was to track guitar for two songs, but Doug was on fire and made it through three out of the four going on the EP. That’s pretty impressive. It sounds like it was a pretty serious session all jokes aside. This project sounds like it’s on track for a release sooner than I thought.
There’s not much else this week, but I did get to sit down and work on some music with Ian and Doug for a couple hours last weekend. I felt ill prepared since I hadn’t really heard the songs we were going to cover. It was a fun night and I really do miss music. I’m grateful to be able to participate a bit more on that end soon. Thanks for joining us again this week. Much love friends.
blackhat 