Chords for Silverstein - Studio Documentary

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Ebm] Making records does not get easier as you go along.
There's a reason that so [Ab] many bands,
their records tend to get worse and worse and worse.
We [Db] definitely felt, as we always do,
the pressure to [Ebm] attempt to outdo ourselves.
This was the first time I think I'd [Eb] allowed someone
not in the band to kind of have an influence on what I was doing.
It's our 8th studio album, [Ebm] so we want to always be inspired
by new surroundings and new people.
I think [Db] we always kind of [B] say that every record is like,
you know, a little bit of a departure,
but then somehow we find a way to make it, you know, our own.
[Eb] And I think that's true [Ebm] with this record,
but it's very much more so ambitious
than I think any record we've ever made.
[C] _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _ _
[N] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ _
_ [B] _ _ laughing
_ _ [Db] _
_ [F] _ _ _ [G] I [Dm] like the patterns we have, and the hinges, they're the ones.
In the last 2 years, we've been touring
pretty nonstop all over the globe.
Oh man, I don't remember those 2 years.
2015 was a very busy year,
discovering the Waterfront, the anniversary tours,
I'm Alive and Everything I [D] Touch album release,
Warped tour, we went to [Dm] Australia twice,
multiple trips to [Gb] Europe.
Canada, America, it's been a lot of touring.
In fact, [F] it all blends together [Bb] as one big thing.
[F] It's funny, there's 2 [G] sides to our band, and they're both music,
[Eb] so you'd think they'd be similar,
but they're vastly [Bb] different in my opinion.
I mean, when you're on the road, you have this [D] instant moment
with a fan that never can be repeated.
When you're making a record, that's going to be listened to
over [F] and over and over again.
So experience, both for the listener and [Gm] for the performer,
for us, is completely different too.
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ [Dm] _ So before this [F] record, we hadn't really spent
that amount of time on pre-production.
We would kind of track it in this very classic way,
which was we'd write [D] songs, the producer [C] would come
to our rehearsal space, watch us play the [Dm] songs,
they'd make notes, come [F] back the next day
and try to play the songs differently.
_ I found [C] that that's always been a frustrating situation
[B] where you're kind of trying to say,
okay, well, let's try it this way.
You were kind of just working on it on the spot,
[Fm] so you might not even have heard really [G] what the bass
or the vocals were doing so well.
[Dm] _ _
When you're all in the room kind of [C] working on something,
it's a lot more on the fly.
For this record, we spent a lot of time making demos,
working drums [Bb] around, changing drum [F] parts, changing guitar parts.
We weren't really falling into, okay, that's the part,
we're just going to work with that.
It was like, that's the part, but we need to change it.
And it was a lot of refining and a lot [Dm] of preparedness in that way,
but it was also pushing the songs, I think, to be better
and even pushing the drum parts to [F] be more intricate.
I think working with Derek was amazing
in the pre-production process.
[Dm] We stepped back a little bit from [F] the songs.
Sometimes we have no idea what I'm going to do vocally,
and we'll just make it work later.
And Derek, our producer, was like, [Cm] that's a hard no for [F] me.
The quality [Eb] of the song in the producer's eyes
wasn't just how well we played it in the [G] room.
Working with Derek Hoffman, our [Cm] producer,
and also Paul Mark, who [Dm] co-produced the record,
so nuts, so [F] meticulous.
_ _ From a writing perspective,
[Cm] everything I had to try and [Dm] pull off [F] had to be great.
Not just good, great.
There's just a lot of clarity in the songs [Cm] right from the beginning.
We were really [Dm] identifying exactly what these songs were all about
and what they could become.
It helped really [F] solidify what we wanted to do
and help us be able to focus on getting the right [Dm] performances
and the right [F] tone. _
Derek [Dm] is a very, [F] very hands-on producer.
Literally just take [Bb] the guitar from me while I was recording,
be like, how about this?
I'd be like, okay, sure.
We'd never had a [Dm] producer so hands-on.
[F] We felt a little bit like everyone was working towards a common goal,
a common vision with the music.
[F] He did help bring the best out of these songs
in this [C] collaborative way.
I don't overthink it, I [B] just _ [Dm] think about it a lot.
We [Em] experimented with some different pedals [D] and effects
to really change up the feel of the guitar.
[G] We experimented with a lot of different tunings.
This new guitar tuning we've been [Gbm] working with
has [E] definitely shaped the way we were writing [Bm] songs.
As [Gb] musicians, you develop at least [Eb] styles in your own playing.
_ [Bb] _ And switching up [E] something like the tuning
forces you out of [Bm] those kind of comfortable [B] habits
that contributed heavily to the sound and the general tone of the record.
The lower guitar tunings, some kind of heavier riffs
were just shocking to me at first,
and now [Em] through the process, adding vocals,
[G] adding this kind of [B] sonic texture to everything,
I don't think we've ever really [Em] approached on our records
and it reminds me of some of my favorite records.
[Gb] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ [Db] _
Where is the track that I'm hearing you on?
Oh, there [Ebm] it is.
_ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Bb]
So [Abm] the subject matter of the songs,
there's a lot [B] of experience I've gone through over the last year
that have [Em] inspired the record.
And [G] the first track, which is called Last Looks,
is directly based on the footballer [B] George Best.
He was kind of the [Em] first celebrity athlete to really be [G] that playboy.
He became an alcoholic.
He's actually the reason that if you get a liver transplant,
you have to [Bm] do 6 months of sobriety,
because he had a liver transplant and kept drinking.
[Em] Before he died, he called the press [A] in to his hospital bed
and he said, don't [B] die like me.
That story, for some reason, at the time I [Em] read about it,
it really did ring [G] true to some of the things
I was going through in my life.
It's very easy when you have hard things and bad things happen to you
to turn to those [B] dark places.
_ [C] _ _
And [Em] you know [D] what's true
Is _ _ _ [C] that _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ no