I started writing "Silencio" with my friend Jeff Crerie back in 2012. Distracted by life and all that comes along with it, I set that song aside for about a year until I came across it again. I liked the idea and I felt we had something cool there. I sat down and wrote my lyric ideas and I had a melody and bass line in my head. I usually hear my songs all at once, with music and melody. I will often start with a partial lyric, which I finish later. I generally like to complete my first draft alone, even if I start the process with a co-writer.
I went back to Jeff with my ideas for our song and we fleshed them out together. Jeff is great with choosing more descriptive words and making sure all the lines flow well together. Silencio started out MUCH slower as well. I found an early demo that had me scatting over a drum loop with a slow bossa nova groove. Silencio started off very much a ballad. One change I made when I went back to Jeff to work on the song together, was that it needed to be much faster. I could hear the whole song in my head. I sang him the bass line I heard in my head and played him a couple of songs I liked that had a similar bass line. We searched for a drum loop based on that. We crafted the lyrics together in about two sessions, give or take. We always work till we're happy with the lyrics and we were especially thrilled with these.
I knew I wanted to record the song with a live band. When I went into the studio in August of 2013 with Mitchell Long, Les King, Chuck Staab and Pete Kuzma, they played Silencio about six different ways. Each version felt very different. When recording, I like to have a lot to work with and then piece together the parts I like later in editing. I then took those tracks to Jeff and we combined two different takes. I recorded the final vocal at Jeff's studio. I'm very comfortable at Jeff's and I feel like I sing better there.
Pete Korpela, who was out on the road at the time, recorded percussion parts from his hotel room somewhere in Idaho. I am so grateful for Pete's contribution. He gave us a ton to work with. We were also lucky enough to catch the highly recommended Tony Bonsera between tours. Tony was brought in last to lay down a flugelhorn solo. We recorded his parts at Veneto West in Venice and bonded over those greasy, crunchy tacos at the Jack in the Box next door. Love those little tacos.
Thomas Hornig, my engineer/mixer for the EP, gave the song further love and smoothed our little Frankenstein of a song out. This little song was a big labor of love and we're all proud with how it turned out!
Listen to an early demo of "Silencio" by clicking the image below.
Listen to the final version of "Silencio" by clicking the image below.
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