.jpg)
The making of The Cake Sale:
The making of this record came in three distinct stages. First of all we listened to a bunch of songs that were submitted from various writers, and chose them based on how they might all sound together both thematically and sonically. Stage two was to record the backing tracks for the songs and put a guide vocal on them so we could play it to the various singers we had in mind to sing them. The last step was to finalise and record the vocalists, and put the finishing touches on the music.
Back in December 2005, I went, along with Graham Hopkins, Paul Noonan, Nick Seymour, Ollie Cole and Lisa Hannigan into Dublin's Westland Studios to record the first four songs - 'Some Surprise, 'Too Many People', 'Last Leaf' and 'Needles'. Ollie, who wrote 'Too Many People' put down a guide vocal, while Lisa sang the other tunes. Right away we knew we were onto something special. These recordings proved to be invaluable as a calling card for more songs and performers to come on board further down the line.
Over the next year, we received more than 20 songs from writers who wanted to be involved. We chose songs based on how they would fit on the record that was beginning to take shape and how thematically universal they were so other singers could interpret them easily.
I sent the original demo of Some Surprise (as sung by Paul) to Gary Lightbody who was a big fan of Paul's songwriting, and who was very enthusiastic about getting involved with the recordings. His schedule didn't allow him to come to Dublin, so in May 2006 we planned a trip to London to record Gary in Townhouse Studios. I had originally intended Gary to sing the whole song, and for Lisa's part to be the harmony vocal on the chorus only. However, during Gary's recording it became obvious that this would be perfect as a duet - and so it was - a duet sung by two people who had never met. Many have said that Gary sounds very much like Paul in this recording. I guess Gary was so familiar with Paul's original demo that it influenced how it he sung it. In fact, had I closed my eyes in the studio, it could have been Paul singing the first take!
For thiose Lisa's original guide vocal ended up being what we used as the final version.
Gemma Hayes agreed to sing 'All The Way Down' after she heard the demo that Glen mailed me. We had already recorded a 'big bombastic' version of this song which didn't really fit the record. It became clear that we needed to record the music with Gemma so as to capture at source her interpretation of the song. Also, both Paul and Nick had recorded with Gemma before, so it was a combo that I knew would work. In July 2006 Gemma was in Dublin, so we grabbed the opportunity and spent a day in the studio working on a more acoustic mellow version. We had all been at Sigur Ros the night before which I think may have influenced our recording in a great way! A few weeks later I travelled to the south of Ireland where Colm was living, drank lots of tea, and recorded Colm playing some violin in his sitting room.
In the same recording session we laid down backing tracks for Black Winged Bird, Aliens, and Vapour Trail. This was a very exciting time as by now we had a really clear idea as to how the record should sound, and so we got versions of these songs recorded pretty quickly. We had help from Emm Gryner who was in town at the time and came in for a day to sing her song Black Winged Bird as well as play the piano. Matt also came in to sing his song Aliens.
We still needed to find some singers to sing these songs. Emm used to sing backing vocals with the Cardigans on tour, and so introduced Nina Persson to the project. Nina loved the song, and the plot, and was really up for some singing. As The Cardigans were in the middle of touring at the time it was unrealistic to schedule a trip to Dublin to record. Another foreign trip was planned, and we brought the hard drive to Sweden where we recorded Nina's part for Black Winged Bird.
I approached Neil Hannon right at the beginning of this project explaining the general idea of what we were about to do. He was up for getting involved in some way. I wanted Neil to sing a song but wasn't sure which song would suit his own very unique style. It was only when we recorded Aliens that I thought we had found a good match. Neil agreed and arrived at the studio with the lyrics of Aliens hand written on a piece of paper with some lyrics scribbled out for which he had replaced with his own. "I've made some changes" he said, "I hope you don't mind". We recorded his vocal, and tracked Neil singing an octave down to get the final result. All concerned were very happy.
Everything had fallen into place but I still had a niggly feeling we were one song short with mixing time looming large. The Thrills were in the middle of recording their third studio album in LA with Tony Hoffer at the time, but really wanted to contribute a song. They recorded an acoustic version of Good Intentions Rust and emailed over the files which we used as a basis to record other instrumentation over. This isn't the most conventional way to record a song - it would be usual to record the drums at the start. Luckily it was pretty much in time and we got a result. We needed to start mixing a week later, and had run out of time to find a singer to sing this song, so ended up using Conor Deasy's demo vocal as the final recording.
Another interesting fact: Tony Hoffer recorded the acoustic version of Good Intentiosn Rust.
Both Josh Ritter and Glen Hansard came to the studio to record their vocal parts as we were mixing the record. They both love Paul and Ollie's songwriting, and so were delighted to be asked to sing these songs. Glen had just come back from the Electric Picnic Festival here in Ireland where I think he had played about five gigs, so his voice was really tired. Josh had also just arrived in form the States after some hectic promotion and touring, so honey and hot water was the order of the day to put the finishing touches on this record!
The result - a collection of nine songs on one album only realised thanks to a pooling of fantastic and generous talents of writers, musicians and singers.
Hope you enjoy,
Brian
Dublin, August 2006