Kenny and Hayden did some trade work with Rob Duffin for some studio time at The Annex so we decided to record the song “Holy.” It was really cool getting there the night before to set up drums and mics. Spending quality time with Tim and Kenny was a lot of fun and Rob was super open to my ideas with mics. He was even cool with me climbing on the roof to put a mic down the chimney, an idea Randal had years ago.
The next day we showed up early to start getting drum tones and seeing which one of Kenny’s many snare drums would be the right choice. Kenny and Rob came up with the best sounding drum tones I’ve ever been a part of with his second snare, a brass Joyful Noise, and I’m hoping we can come up with those drum tones the next time we record.
After Hayden recorded the scratch track (The chords and vocals that will be used to record everything else, then are replaced with a legit version of vocals and keys) we thanked God for a chance to play music for him. We prayed also that He would bless our time in the studio and use what we were about to record to bless the saints and have an impact on listeners who don’t know Jesus. Kenny, Tim and Dan did an amazing job and nailed their parts quickly. Hayden and I had 45 minutes left to get tones and record so we decided to come back another day to record our parts.
We are a worship band and we know that as a worship band our main goal is to worship God first and play music that will lead others into worship second. We want to disappear the moment the listener is engaging with The Lord. If our hearts aren’t in it and we’re not engaging with Jesus first we can’t expect to lead the listener anywhere. As a band we also want to catch the ear of the guy or girl who doesn’t know what being led into worship is. We can’t do that unless we’re passionate enough to believe what we’re doing and why
we’re doing it and refined enough to do it without distraction.
Studio time with this band is much different than any of the other bands I’ve spent time with in the studio for a few reasons. Our focus is on something completely different, the air is legal to breathe, the grace and unity with each other is encouraging and the amount of critique that goes into every single note is so intense that I went home exhausted (and I didn’t even record!)
Our goal in recording is that we can give the believer something tangible. Something they can listen to in their car or at their computer or anywhere else and have an encouraging moment with Jesus. As far as “Winning the lost” goes, our prayer is that God would help us to establish relationships with unbelieving members of bands in the Salt Lake scene and their friends. We pray that He would use those relationships as a means to see the unsaved become Christians, and to point the fallen away to the local church.
All of which we cannot do without loving God first.
