Chords for Ramona Falls - Interview (Last.fm Sessions)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Hi, this is Brent of the band Ramona Falls.
Our second album, Prophet, is out now.
_ Today in the studio, my bandmates Dave and Brandon and I played together. _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ _ Choosing to make Ramona Falls [D] my main focus is incredibly [E] nerve-wracking and scary. _ _ _
_ [D] You know, _ Menomina was extraordinarily lucky [E] to become self [A]-sustaining _ [D] financially,
and it's unclear whether Ramona Falls will [E] get to enjoy that.
But all I could really do is focus on _ making the best work I can
and trying to _ _ create something [D] that _ _ [D] _ _
hopefully [E] resonates with people.
_ _ [D] But yeah, I was in a band called Menomina for ten years, and we had four and a half albums [E] together.
_ It was a [F#] really wonderful [D] experience, and it was kind of time for new adventures. _
_ _ [E] So yeah, here it is.
I've been doing some producing on the side a [D] little bit,
but I've kind of whittled that down now.
I'm [E] focusing on the Ramona Falls _ [Am] thing right now.
[D] _ The first time that I thought about doing [E] material outside of Menomina was _ _ _ probably when
it just became really clear [A] that our next record was [E] really coming to light.
It was [B] taking a long time to make, and there were some songs that weren't really [E] finding a home within the Menomina ecosystem.
_ And yeah, that's how Ramona Falls got started.
But I've always been kind of interested in other _ things for fun.
I mean, me and Danny did a _ concert of P.J. Harvey covers really early on in [C#m] Menomina's trajectory.
[D] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [E] Recording the first Ramona Falls [G#m] record was _ so much [E] fun.
It [A] gave me the opportunity to ask a whole bunch of friends [C#m] and people that I [D] really respect,
musicians I respect, if [A] they would spare a couple hours of their time and work [B] on the project [D] with me. _ _
_ In [C#m] almost all the cases it involved going over to their house or their practice space [D] and just [Em] setting up a couple [C#m] mics.
_ _ I would [F#] often record them jamming along to [D] kind of the skeleton of the song, and [C#m] I would record their first take.
So they hadn't even heard the song [D] before.
They had no idea what key was in.
They [A] had no idea what the tempo [E] was.
And I was asking them to just [F#] like fumble, play along and [C#] learn it while I was [A] recording them.
And what I found is that often [E] in that process [C#m] some really cool ideas kind _ [D] of _ [A] ended up happening.
_ [F#] _
So that was the [F#] first half of my time with each [D] person.
And then the second half [A] of my time with each person [E] was usually I had some kind of,
[C#m] I did have some premeditated ideas [F#] that I thought that they might be able to really voice [A] in _ an interesting way.
And so [E] I would play them a certain melody [A] and then ask them to repeat it.
So it was a mixture [E] of the completely unpredictable [F#] and the completely unplanned,
[A] along with _ some stuff that had [E] some forethought to it.
There were a couple [B] of songs from the first Ramona Falls record that I [Bm] had submitted to the Menominer [C#m] process
and [D] never really heard back, so [A] I thought I'd just go ahead and finish [E] them under the Ramona Falls [E] banner.
_ [F#] _ _ _
[D] But I think that [A] Ramona Falls has kind of [E] its own identity, and so [C#m] _ _ it ended up taking kind of a different shape.
And it would have had it [Am] become a Menominer [E] song. _
I think it's [E] safe to call [Bm] Prophet more of a band album in a way.
_ [D] _ _ _ [A] After the first record came out I formed [C#m] a four-piece and we [D] toured that record [E] and played a bunch of shows together.
And so when [F#] it came time to record the follow-up, Prophet, I [D] wanted to include my [E] bandmates as much as possible in the process.
And so _ 90 to 95 [C#m] percent of the record [D] is us four performing it.
[C#m] Paul plays all the drums, for example.
_ [F#] But we still had a couple guests.
We had about [D] four friends play on the record [A] as well.
So _ [C#] it was a blast.
When we were recording the follow-up album, Prophet, there wasn't as much _ going to different locations to record with different people.
It was more in our basements or our houses. _ _
_ But in terms of the overall how much time it took, I feel like it must have taken ten times as long to make Prophet.
I _ really cared incredibly deeply _ about the record and really tried to layer it [A] in a way that would create an [D] experience for [E] someone _ _ _ [F#] after repeated listens.
[A] So hopefully after the tenth time they might even hear something [E] new.
_ _ [B] It was a very intense process.
I worked on it pretty much [Bm] every day for _ [C#m] ten months, I guess.
[D] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [E] _
When we [F#] were recording Prophet, we ended up [D] finishing, I think, 13 songs, [A] 11 of which are on the actual [E] record itself, and [C#m] two of which are going [D] to be available as B-sides.
[A] _ _ _ _ [E] _
And it's funny that the [B] writing process is really [D] unpredictable.
_ _ [A] There was one song, Spore, actually, where [C#m] _ we were going [D] in one direction with it.
[F#] And I really believed in the song.
I thought it had _ a lot of promise, but [D] it just really wasn't resonating.
So [E] _ I ended up scrapping the whole direction of that song [C#m] and [D] _ _
refashioning it from [A] the ashes.
_ [E] _
[C#m] So of [F#] all the ideas that get [D] recorded during the process, probably [A] only _ [E] one-tenth or one-twentieth of the ideas that get [C#m] recorded ever [D] make it into the song.
_ [A] It's a pretty _ intensive [E] process of pruning [F#] away the stuff that's not working, and [D] there's a lot of stuff that doesn't work.
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