13 Chaos St
"The only address you'll ever need"
I have a couple of albums coming out in 2011-2012 (and probably continuing from there) with various bands and projects and I thought I throw in a couple of lines about them, from my side of the board, as they are being released. First out is the 13 Chaos St album "The only address you'll ever need" that is out now.
It's produced, mixed, recorded and arranged by me. Yes, I ended up doing the lot on this first one.
When it was all mixed we couldn't see (or hear) what a mastering could add to it - except make it more 2011 and clearer, fatter and louder - and: plastic and fake ...and so wrong - so we decided not to master it. Around that time I also heard that Iron Maiden and their producer Kevin Shirley decided (or rather: Steve Harris decided) not to master the "Final frontier" album, so that put enough fuel to the fire to go: if they're not doing it, we certainly don't have to.
I perform all the guitars and background vocals and have written about half of it. Jari, the vocalist, have written all the lyrics. Andy "Drake" Mallander performs all bass, all fretless bass actually, and Vesa Kallio the drums - All band members doing what they do in the band. As it should be.
When it comes to my gear I used my two ESP Ltd Saari Custom Viper-400 with Seymour Duncan humbuckers through various 80s Marshall heads and tube preamps and 4x12" cabinets. Also some Line 6 stuff. All effects on the guitars was put on afterwards when mixed except for the wah wah which was controlled by me through a Line 6 expression pedal when the guitar was recorded. For the acoustic parts I used my Washburn guitars through Röde NT1 and/or NT3 mikes.
It's written and recorded in a very different way, the material is more jammed into songs and jammed into tape (well, hard drive) and it's all very few takes, many parts actually first takes. This resulting in it being a very raw, relaxed and live sounding album. It's not 100% tight and there sure are some misses here and there, but getting it 100% tight and perfect was never the point. My goal as a producer was to go for the 70-80s vibe, thinking and feel. I wanted to catch old Van Halen kind of vibes, but off course with the 13 Chaos St material, which obviously is more a mix of grunge and metal, or something. As I hear the finished album, I totally achieved my goal, for me it's my version, of any of the first four Van Halen albums written and performed 13 Chaos St style.
It's not the longest of albums but we didn't want a 15-song album, but more the 70-80s thinking here as well, not having any fillers, but only the best songs, the real deal. Simply: The crap has been left out and I'd sure say that the material is very strong, really content and proud of my part of the writing and also my guitar performance, which is not that common when it comes to me, and both the writing and the guitar recording was really easy, totally natural and unforced which sure leaves a good feeling there. One thing is also that every single part of the songs was written for this band and this album just months before it was recorded, so the material is really fresh.
Generally I'm really proud and content of this album. It really turned out exactly as I wanted it to, in every aspect of it. It is all it was meant to be. Hope you'll enjoy it.
/ PM
You'll find the album at (among other places):
Spotify
iTunes
Amazon
Lastfm
Napster
The track list:
1. I, Lucifer
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 4:54
2. Jack Of Trades
(Written by Saari/Salonen) 3:47
3. Morphine Mon Amour
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 3:36
4. Onto Chaos Born
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 3:48
5. Wreck
(Written by Saari/Salonen) 3:42
6. Let The Piper Lead The Way
(Written by Saari/Salonen) 4:10
7. Life, Death, Legend
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 3:48
8. Vicious
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 4:05
9. The Year We Were Blessed
(Written by Saari/Mallander/Salonen) 4:54
10. Jack Of Trades (Radio Edit)
(Written by Saari/Salonen) 3:09
