HARRISON HUDSON: Blog Hawk Down

Well for all sakes and purposes we’re done tracking our 2013 record, Curious. It’s been a strange time as I, Harrison, was gone for most of the flourishing work (background vocals, percussion, etc.). I spent many a day on the phone or e-mailing with our producer, Micah Tawlks, and bandmate, Shaun Rawlings. There were times of me singing background vocals for a girls part into garage band and sending them in. There were times of my mind being blown by what Shaun and Micah did without me present. I thought “I need to get back home before they figure out they don’t need me!” Background vocals on this record were primarily done by Isaaca Groenwald of the Bridges and Erika Attwatter. These girls were joys to work with and both have uniquely beautiful voices that leave a special impression on this record. Our friend Steve McKellar of Civil Twilight and  Micah also sang on a song or two. I played most of the guitars. Micah played the rest. Shaun played all of the drums and percussion. I think Micah may have done some on it as well. Bass guitar was split between Kevin Dailey, Micah Tawlks and I even played on one song. It was a milestone. Let’s move on. Another major guest we had come in was Mark Bond of The Features. Mark brought an incredible labyrinth of synthesizer knowledge to the table. Micah, Shaun and I would describe a vague idea of a sound and with a few punches on his boards he would have our imagination materialized. It was like watching Einstein work equations. I now have a whole new level of respect for Mark and what was already my favorite band, The Features. It was an honor and a joy having him work on the project. 

When we set out to make Curious  I frankly didn’t think the title fit the whole record. I chose it because I felt that song was our strongest and I had some strong ideas for imagery. We had made a conscious decision to make a “modern” pop record. We didn’t want as much of a “throwback” sound as we had with American Thunder. What ended up happening was something WEIRD. We kept referencing modern sounds and modern records, but our versions of that were neither modern or throwback. I think it’s similar to Weezer being Cuomo’s version of KISS. I can’t wait for you to hear this record. We had a fun process. Many conversations went much like this: “This song makes me want to go ‘north’ let’s go ‘south.’ Let’s get off the highway and take this thing into the ditch.” We felt we ended up letting our own sonic curiosity drive this record’s creation. I think we’ve made a step forward as artists and as a band. I feel big things are ahead for Curious. We can’t wait for you to hear it. 

We are now about to go to mixing, mastering and manufacturing. The 3 big M’s before PR and Release. We decided to get Craig Alvin to mix the record. He’s worked with artists from The Features to Amy Grant. He’s got ears of gold (if gold makes you mix better). More importantly, Craig wants the artists he works with to be bold. I respect that and he even challenged us from day one. 

Below is a link to Preorder our new record. Doing so will help ensure we don’t cut any corners on this record. Please consider buying the record a little early in order to help make it great. I’m even putting up my own guitar for sale because I care about doing everything on this record the right way. I hate selling guitars. I’ve done it once in my life. I buy one and it’s mine for life. So don’t count on this happening often. I humbly ask you to consider investing in this record. You’re a part of this now. Thanks eternally. We’re humbled anyone would even download our music for free much less pay for it before every hearing a note. 

thanks

-Harrison Hudson 

(click on the new album art to pre-order the new record!)

Well two weeks are down. We’ve recorded all of the drums, bass, guitars and lead vocals. Mark Bond and Kevin Dailey came in to add some key work. It has been a physically and emotionally draining two weeks as I split my time between working a job, recording and also prepping for the Equip World Relay that I will be managing from the road starting in March. In between all of that I got to see my friends in Fun. play the Ryman. All Get Out, also buds, opened. It was an amazing evening. I can’t believe we got so much done in two weeks. I don’t know that I’ve ever made a record in this process. Mon-Fri 9:30-5:30. It was so much fun to not sit and wait to bring in more ideas. Monday and Tuesday of next week we will do background vocals and percussion. Then we will have the record mixed and mastered while I am out with the relay. I’m still processing all of our ideas and executions. I can say that, despite my exhaustion, I am thrilled to share this music with everyone. Can’t wait. More to come soon. I’m gonna go eat dinner and then hopefully rest. 

-H

 Tomorrow we start tracking Curious. It was an exciting day. We loaded in gear, ran cables and got the drums ready to track. We also finalized our song selections for the record. Sadly we can’t make a triple disc rock opera (this time). That left us with some tough choices. We spent a part of the evening wrestling with the final 3 spots. We had six songs still fighting for those spots. I am thoroughly enthused with the final selections. However, that enthusiasm was met with some sadness. We had to trash fourteen songs. An entire album of music that went to the waste bin. These weren’t just the songs I had also written this year. These were fourteen songs that we felt were good enough to be on the record. Some of them were harder to turn away than others. Guarded Heart was the hardest for me. It’s been with me for three years. It didn’t feel right for American Thunder. It was the last song cut off of Curious. I love that song. Tomorrow all of this will be forgotten and we’ll start the next chapter of our band’s life. We’ll forget everything we’ve done and start anew. Tomorrow we get Curious (see what I did there?).

-H

these are the ones we got rid of. say goodbye. 

On February 11, 2013 The Nashville, based rock duo, Harrison Hudson (HH) will start tracking on their next album titled, Curious. HH will spend the month of February recording their follow up to 2011’s American Thunder in Nashville, TN. HH are teaming back up with Micah Tawlks of Peptalk Studio to produce their latest endeavor. Below are some thoughts from the band’s frontman, Harrison:

Shaun and I are beyond excited about starting our next record. I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to say about it at this point. We’re very happy with the songs for Curious. We only picked from 25 songs this time opposed to the 60 that we started out with for American Thunder. We were busy touring and only wrote 25 over the last year or so. That being said, we finally have settled on the 11 we will take into the studio and record. We are beyond excited. We won’t be doing a Kickstarter this time around and that is a relief to me, personally. Despite it’s success, it was a stressful event. We hope that we reward our fans by being able to cover the tab on this one ahead of time. I think our current fans will very much enjoy our development as artists on this next endeavor, and hopefully we meet and make a lot of new friends with Curious. We will be sending out constant updates from the studio with our progress. Stay tuned. In celebration of the start of Curious. We put our online Merch Store on sale. Everything is discounted! Check it out here. We can’t wait to share this new music with you!

thanks again

-Harrison Hudson