SHEAVY "What's really funny, or maybe even ironic, is that we spent a great deal of time making this an analog production only to get the final copies of the CD back from the manufacturer only to find a digital glitch on "Rings of Saturn." Yes, it's on all 2000 copies we printed so please... forgive us and please don’t return the CD! " Just a few weeks ago Sheavy released a new album entitled "The Machine That Won The War." It's the band's sixth full-length, and the first indie release Sheavy has done since "Blue Sky Mind back in 1995." Why the switch? "Just tired of the bullshit of the music biz really", says Stephen Hennessey as he rambles on to Roadburn about the making of "The Machine That Won The War." I mean, we released four albums for Rise Above and we've never so much as gotten accurate reporting on what we've sold. With the Music Cartel in shambles we'll probably never be able to get figures on the U.S at all. Well, enough whining, back to the new album..." Words | Stephen Hennessey For those of you interested in such things, the title comes from an Issac Asimov short story of the same name. I remember sitting in a teaching seminar in Sao Paulo when the girl next to me pulled out a collection of sci-fi short stories. The moment I saw the title of the Asimov story I knew I'd found what I was looking for. Many months ago, during the heart of a cold Newfoundland winter I came up with a mad scheme to go totally indie / low-fi with the new release. I even had myself convinced to do the entire thing on my vintage Tascam 4-track deck. After running the idea by a few knowledgeable friends I was pretty discouraged. Basically they told me that it would probably just sound like shit. Far too many bounces, too many overdubs and that's not to mention the accumulated track noise and hiss. So, I abandoned the 4-track idea and rented a 450 pound analog nightmare otherwise known as the Studer 820. The machine, circa 1979, was a super well kept model once used for CBC radio in St. John’s. But well kept is one thing, well running is another. Did we have problems? Yes, way too many to detail here! All I can say is that between the analog deck needing alignment and snowstorms, our schedule was a mess. On our second night of drum tracking I got stuck at the studio because of a storm and slept on a pile of cardboard boxes while covering myself with the moving blanket that came with the Studer. Being the stubborn bastard that I am I didn't entirely give up on my little 4-track dream altogether. All the drums were recorded on the 1\4 inch machine and then mixed down to two stereo tracks on the big Studer. Mark Reccord braved the drum submix and it turned out surprisingly good. What you have to remember is that once the drums were submixed that's it, there's your final drum sound. The only thing you can really do in the main mix is mess with the overall EQ. Since I used only 4-mics to record the drums, Mark had to manually ride faders to bring up the toms in the overheads anytime there was a roll. Still, we got through it and proceeded to lay the rest of the tracks on the Studer. Dan and Tommy played through the same rig while doing overdubs: a Marshall JCM 800 with a single sm57 on the 2X10 cab. The solos went direct through a small VOX Amp with emulation settings. Keith played through an awesome Avalon DI. It was so nice I wanted to steal the thing. But alas, St. John's is a small town. As far as the singing went I managed to do the vocals over two days. What's funny is that nobody actually saw me sing because I came in and did all the tracking by myself. The Studer 820 we rented had no remote so I had to set up a mic in the makeshift control room and stand next to the tape machine. After way too many fuck-ups, I gave up hope on any single line punch-ins or fixes. The big bam-bam buttons on the Studer kept messin' me up! So, if something was off or a double wasn't tight - I sang the whole verse again. Once the tracking was done I pestered Don Ellis until he agreed to do the final mix. We delivered the Studer to his house and he got busy soldering up a snake to connect the beast to his MCI console. A few weeks of 'Don time' later and the thing was done. So there you have it, I think it's an honest record because there's no autotune, no cut and paste, and no dragging that misplaced snare shot back in time. It's a simple and honest rock record and I think we can be proud of it. What's really funny, or maybe even ironic, is that we spent a great deal of time making this an analog production only to get the final copies of the CD back from the manufacturer only to find a digital glitch on "Rings of Saturn." Yes, it's on all 2000 copies we printed so please... forgive us and please don’t return the CD! For those of you who have the version of the CD with the DVD I hope you've enjoyed it. If you were there and remember the blizzard that struck that afternoon then you'll know that Holy Heart Theatre was largely empty with the exception of the few hundred die-hards who braved the elements. We sincerely want to thank everyone who came out that night. It was freakin’ nasty!! A lot of hard work by a lot of great people went into making the video. Mark Hefferman and Ronald Gonzalez did a hell of a lot of work on the editing and gave me a sweet deal on the whole thing. On the audio side I know the money I gave Rick Hollett doesn't nearly come close to cover the hours he put into it. Are there any overdubs? There are plenty on the vocals. I had a terrible night and there are lots of touch ups on the trailing ends of notes. Fuck it, Tommy Dunphy's fabulous light show looked great with all that hazer smoke even if I was dried out and nearly choking to death on the shit! So, for right now we've gone back to releasing under Dallas Tarr Records which isn't really a record label at all. It was Ren's brainchild back in the 90's and I thought using the name would be cool. A coming full circle sort of thing. Since we're broke and without label support you can probably rule out any touring on this one. I'm in Vancouver at the moment slugging boxes for a courier company on the graveyard shift. I can definitely see another CD on the horizon though. Only this time here's the plan: Record the new tunes on my vintageTascam 238 8-track cassette multi-track We sell do it your self CD kits – you get a case, the official artwork, and a thermal printed CD-R Then you go to our website, download the tracks and burn your own CD. We can work it out baby! The Machine That Won The War > On to the songs... The Sleeping Assassin I believe Keith showed up at the jams with this little riff. I think it's true to say that this entire album was much more of collaboration than normal. Both Keith and Tommy came through with ideas and as usual we jammed the shit outta stuff until it worked. For this tune we tried a bunch of stuff in the middle section but settled on the heavy drums with the subtle riff mods as the thing builds. Mixing the drums on this was tough. None of the toms were close miked so they kinda sounded like Kevin was hitting cardboard boxes in another room. Mark came up with a combination of EQ settings and manual fader adjustments on the fly to bring the drums up in the mix. Oh the joys of 4-track recording! Demon Soldiers This tune is Tommy's brainchild. He'd show up at the jams with tunes recorded on his cellphone. We told him he should set up a service called dial-a-riff and charge people to access them! This is an evil rocker and I like the way Don thinned the vocals and upped the reverb to give it more space in the mix. The vocals were actually recorded on a relatively cheap mic – Rode NT-1. But behind the mic was a wicked Focusrite [Blue Series ISA] preamp and a totally whacked out RCA compressor \ limiter from the 1950's that was normally used to compress radio station signals. There were so many exposed wires and tubes on that thing that I was afraid of it. Still, when it warmed up, it was awesome. I'm still wondering about that ominous spoken word thing at the end of the tune. I’m thinkin' the cheese factor might rise over time. Why is it so cool when Tom Araya does it? Humanoid Having gotten totally caught up in Isaac Asimov and robot sci-fi prior to doing the album I felt compelled to do a song dealing with the reality of man creating intelligent life through technology. Musically, the entire song is Keith's brainchild. I like the melodic structure of the back –half and the choppy riff that dominates most of the track. I really think it's a unique sounding song for us. Dan's layered guitar at the end helps with the melodic buildup and overall I like the way the song changes pace just enough to keep you guessin.' Dawn of the Black Orchid This track is Tommy Boland's doom masterpiece. I'm not sure where he found this riff but we'll be lovin' him for it for a long time. There was also a very important lesson learned while recording this song. When you find a guitar that downtunes well and actually stays in tune, guard it with your life. Tommy and Dan were both contributing rhythm tracks on the songs but when it came to this song, only Tommy's Gibson seemed to have the magic tuning. When he left the studio early one night Dan and I attempted to match rhythm tracks using his ESP. It was a nightmare! Nothing would stay in tune or match the original track. Tommy ended up having to come in a month later and lay the second track just prior to Don doing the mix. You can still hear the subtle tuning differences between the tracks but I think it only adds to the dark and twisted nature of the riff. Aboard the Mothership The minute Dan started playing this riff I thought of Nebula. I'm not sure how Eddie Glass would feel about that but this tune surely is an up-tempo rocker in the style of the super San Franciscans. It's gonna be a bitch to sing on a bad night what but the hell. I think my favourite single moment on the whole album happens during the fade on the guitar solo as Dan is laying down the last few licks. It kinda reminds me of the sort of sounds Brian Robertson unloads all over Motorhead’s 'Another Perfect Day' album. Rings of Saturn This song is gonna be re-titled Glitch. About 40 seconds in there's a freakin' digital glitch that's on all 2000 copies pressed. I was just about ready to strangle someone when I heard it but oh well, I'll just chalk it up to shitty luck and move on. The track is actually one of my faves. I think it captures a little of the 70's rock style we all love. The riff is Dan's I believe while the odd little reverse intro outro was just done for a lark and just stuck. It sounds absolutely bizarre when done live. Kevin’s intro [and shamefully my belching] come from the drum tracks. It may just be Kev's vocal debut! Here Falls The Shadow I was wandering the stacks of the university library one day when I spotted a book entitled 'Falls the Shadow.' I can't even remember what the book was about but I knew it would inspire something dark. This track has old school sHEAVY doom styling written all over it. I like the middle sections when the song goes heavy. I think it has a slight Sleep feel to it and in my book, that's never a bad thing. I also love Janine Hawkin's artwork contribution for this song. As soon as Dan saw it he said it would be awesome. Cheers to you Janine. Lords of Radiation What can I say, we love a little band out of Chicago called Trouble and this is about as Trouble-ish as we get.This is easily one of my faves. In fact, if it were up to me the album would have ended right here. The solos are trade offs between Dan and Tommy. Because we had so few tracks to work with on the analog deck Tommy’s solos and my vocals are on the same track. Doing overdubs is nerve-wrecking when you’ve gotta worry about mowing down someone else's stuff. I really wanted to do a video for this song. Who knows, maybe we will some day. The Dark Carnival This song was originally intended to have a barrage of double kicks and china cymbals during the buildup and choruses. I'm kinda glad we dropped the double kick drums because playing this live with those china's rattling next to your head is positively mind numbing. I'm not sure if the octave harmonies work on the vocals but I do like the verses. Someone at the studio said they liked it because they could actually hear what I'm saying. I guess that means that most of the time you can't! Oh well. Maybe I should try the death growl instead! Where Earth Meets Sky Dan was planning on doing this track with a lot less guitar than you hear on the finished version.I think Keith and Don had to twist his arm into laying down some licks just prior to the mix. I like the tempo changes and the openness of some of the riffs. I had a bitch of a time singing some of the middle sections. It's the only time I wished for Auto-tune. But what you hear is what you get and in the end I feel pretty good about that. One Of Us Must Be Dead Anyone remember Helmet? Of course you do and this little stomper tracks seems more and more Helmet-ish every time I hear it. Dan's a big fan of this kind of ragged, in your face riff and I wasn't surprised when he brought it to the jams. I enjoy the super heavy middle section even though part of me wishes I'd sung it differently. Oh well, it's all I could come up with at the time. I also like the dead stop ending. I think the modified riff at the end is very insistent and forceful until it all comes to a screeching halt. The Gunfighters This little number is another of Keith's contributions. Or at least the heavy first section is. I'm not sure whose idea it was to do the slightly Iron Maiden-ish dual guitar assault during the middle section but I like the tempo and the feel. I also feel like it's one of those moments when we step into new territory as a band. Sure it's been done before. But it's the first bloody time we've tried it so it's refreshing on that level. I also like Dan's oddly tuned outro note. Seemed like a cool way to wrap things up. So, there you have it – 'The Machine That Won The War.' We'll be writing again soon and with any luck, recording sometime early next year. Sure hope you guys enjoy the tunes. Sheavy - Rings of Saturn Recorded and aired on Feb 27 2007 on the program "Out of the Fog"