Suddenly Silence

Ok, things haven’t been working out exactly as planned. For one thing, several things in my personal life caused me to draw a bit of money and attention away from the new CD. Now that everything is taken care of and our new recorder has arrived, it’s time to start recording something! Everything has been tested and is working flawlessly. All software updates are complete and I was editing some basic practice tracks tonight. There’s still going to be a bit of a learning curve with the new equipment that I’ll have to get around, but that’s totally to be expected. So far, we’ve had some great ideas about additional “tweaks” and add-ons to the songs once we get the basic tracks recorded. This will be the first CD from us that will have string arrangements in some places, which we think will bring something to the table that our fans will appreciate.

At this point the CD is still yet untitled. We’ve been throwing several ideas around at practice but so far nothing has really stuck yet. As a matter of fact, we still have songs without titles, so we probably need to start working on those first. I’m slow at coming up with titles and things like that.
We’ll have some new pics up soon, and Bob from HMedia is working on a new website layout as we speak. Finally, things are starting to heat up here in Virginia! We’ll have updates straight from the studio now and they’ll be posted right here on this blog. Until next time, drink up me hearties yo ho!

As I mentioned on the front page the other day, we have had some gear issues arise that were not expected (it’s not like these things are expected anyway), so it has delayed the recording process for us at the moment. Basically, our recorder wasn’t recording, which makes the whole process of making a CD kinda hard. The problem has been addressed though, and the non-recording recording unit is now on it’s way back to it’s home. As soon as the money gets dropped back into my account, we’ll have another (different) recording unit on it’s way. I also stated in the front page update that we’re still writing new stuff. All I can say is that it’s cool shit. I can’t wait to play it on tour for everyone. I think everyone will like it. We’ve changed stuff up a bit, but we still have that signature sound! I also just noticed that I said “recording” a lot in this paragraph.
Also, I would like to take a moment to announce that Danny Delp has now been accepted into the Spector Family of Artists! He plays Spector basses exclusively, and we’re all honored that he was accepted into the Spector family. If you are wanting to start playing the bass, you need to go out and get yourself a Spector! Danny will be listed in the artist section of their website and you can visit it by going to www.spectorbass.com. I also just noticed that I said “Spector” a lot in this paragraph .
Anyway, things are getting there for us. Mad props to Lightning Rod for putting up with us and working hard for us. Also, thanks to you (yeah, you…reading this) as well. Without fans, we would suck. Anyway, I’m out. Stay tuned for more updates on the recording process. We won’t leave you out…

-Darren

By the way, I’m still learning this blog interface after all this time. I just realized that I can post under my own name instead of “webmaster”. My God…the things you can discover at 5:00 am.

It’s getting close to studio time for us and we’re getting excited. I’ve got 2 more pieces of gear on the way and we’ll be ready to start once they arrive (and of course after I configure everything to do what I need/want it to do). We’re actually still writing songs too. We’ll probably add in a lot of stuff as we go along since we don’t have to worry about getting out of the studio at any specific time this go ’round. There will also be some new stuff on here soon as well. I’m trying to piece together a picture/video blog, of sorts, to give everyone an idea as to what we actually do in our spare time when we aren’t rocking out. This will be complete with senseless antics and vulgarity that could only come from us. You’ll also get to see what we blow our money on (contrary to popular belief, it does NOT involve hookers and blow). I think it will be a pretty neat addition to the site, and it will probably help answer the question “how many guitars do you have and what kind are they?”. I get that a lot, and I get tired of typing out the list. Of course, I could probably just type it once and save it, then copy and paste it when someone emails me that question. I’m thinking out loud again…but anyway, it should be lots of fun. Anyway, you all should see more on here now that things are starting to happen once again. When we get another van, we’ll see you on the road. By the way, I work nights now. That means I’m up really late every night, even on my nights off. Add SuddenlySilence to your AIM if you want to chit chat or whatever. I’m a friendly guy sometimes.

-Darren

It’s been a while, and I’ve already built up a healthy collection of hate mail to prove it. Anyway, we’ve been busy again, not to mention the bit of trouble I’ve had with getting this website thing to work properly. Everything in my personal life has finally reached a somewhat set schedule which has left me plenty of time for writing and designing for the new CD. Everything is looking really promising! So far, we have “The War Against…”, “In The Chaos of Sleep”, “Statues With Paper Hearts”, “Verses Are Sharp Objects”, “Parts of Pictures”, and a brand new full-electric version of “A Summer Sky to Call Home” (which was the acoustic track from the Emo Girl EP from 2005). We’ve got about 4 more in the works right now as well. We will be recording the CD in our own studio (The Pit), so we’ll have as much time as we need to fit and polish the whole thing. We’re definitely looking forward to the recording process. We’ll be calling on the services of Brandon “Hack” Hackler and our old friend Tim “Smurf” Parks this time around too, so it’s definitely going to be a CD that will exceed anything that we have ever done before. As far as shows go, we are concentrating a bit more on recording, but should be doing some shows around the area soon. You’ll just have to stay tuned for updates. Plus, if anyone has a BIG new van they’ll sell us cheap, please let us know! Anyway, stay tuned…you never know when we’ll throw up a video or new song! Visit our myspace page (www.myspace.com/suddenlysilence) and check out our video from the Rock-It Club as well as our music!

-Darren

Goddamn it’s been a wild couple of months for us! I have failed (once again) to update this thing as much as I should have. Send your hate mail to me. Anyway, as most people know, Danny Taylor decided back in January to leave Suddenly Silence. Once again I will say that there are no hard feelings between anyone. He was no longer happy with things in Suddenly Silence, and we definitely respect his decision. When you stop having fun, jump off the fuckin’ ship. That’s what this shit is all about: having fuckin’ fun playing the music that we love. Taylor’s decision to leave really opened up my eyes and made me realize that everything seemed too much like work.

It takes A LOT of work to run a band, and sometimes you can get caught up in it and forget why the hell you’re actually playing music in the first place. I, personally speaking, have taken a new outlook on the whole thing. I sat back during our couple of weeks off from jamming and just thought really hard about where I wanted this band to go, and what exactly I wanted to come away with whenever it is all said and done. I reached a decision: I want to look back one day and say “Goddamn that was the best fuckin’ time I’ve ever had,” instead of, “Fuck, that was a lot of work.” People have told us from the beginning that we are wasting our time/money/talent doing this, but they have no idea what this whole thing means to us.

We live and breathe this shit, and we have since we started gathering 7 years ago in my parents’ living room every week. Music is the most addictive drug (yes, drug…it makes you high in a way that no physical substance can) that is known to man, and you can’t sleep at night sometimes because it’s all that you think about. People that have never experienced it don’t know what I’m talking about, but those who have know exactly what I’m saying. I’ve dedicated my life to it. I remember doing everything from missing family reunions to turning down dates with chicks just to play a show for 15 or 20 people, and I wouldn’t change a damn thing. That’s how it affects people. Since I’m responsible for bills and the general “life” bullshit now, I have a little less time for it than I had when we started, but that does not mean I’m any less passionate about it. I’m lucky enough now to be surrounded by many talented people who understand just how important this shit is to me, and they support the band with as much passion as we have. The bottom line is: let the work come as it may…that’s just part of the game. However, we’re bringing the fun back into it just like there should have been all of the time.

As you know, we welcomed Scott Spencer into the band last month, and he has filled the position well. Many people have asked us why we settled on him. For one thing, the guy is cool as hell. Secondly, he’s a talented musician. Thirdly, he busted ass learning this new shit, and he’s ALWAYS practicing when he’s not at work or with the family. We took everything into very careful consideration whenever he started jamming with us, and Danny, Greg, and myself felt that it was just meant to be. Nothing felt weird at all, and that said a lot. There is a definite learning curve to get around with our music, especially with Scott’s style being totally different. However, we feel that his style will be a pleasing compliment to everything that we do, and I think the fans will agree once we start playing on the road again.

Some feel we made a decision too soon and that we didn’t give others a fair chance. I honestly don’t think that is a fair assumption to make since the position was fairly critical to the future of the band. We gave everyone a fair chance, and Scott fit the best. We’re all getting settled back into a new practice schedule at the moment (moving from Saturdays to Thursdays), and we’re even jamming on some new tunes. We’re comfortable with how everything is integrating with our personal lives now, and we’re more in tune with each other than ever before. This change, in my opinion, was needed to get things back on track.

Anyway, I figured that I would take some time to clear up some questions that some folks have had, and we will definitely be ready to be back out there on the road as soon as we possibly can. Until then, just stay tuned to suddenlysilence.com and myspace.com/suddenlysilence for announcements. Thanks again, and we’ll see you sooner than you expect.

-Darren 

It’s been damn near 2 months since I’ve updated, so I’ll try to sum things up. First of all, we’re still selling a shitload of CD’s. People are still giving us plenty of positive feedback on it, which rocks. We made an appearance on The Not Important Radio Show this past week, which was fuckin’ awesome. The Nexus Records dude’s are super cool dudes to hang with, and it was definitely a pleasure being apart of their radio show. For those of you who missed it, we basically just shot the shit for 2 hours while listening to some fuckin’ metal. It was pretty cool. We’ve also been fucking around with some new shit in practice. I know that we have just released a CD, but when the inspiration strikes, you gotta listen. There are no new songs just yet…more like ideas and random riffs that we have came up with over the course of the past few months. I’ve been hitting a 2-3 hour-a-day practice routine which has helped clear my mind immensely of the same old shit. Every musician that I know never wants to write the same thing twice, so I’ve been doing everything from playing the banjo to extensively practicing scales and modes on guitar. It’s working out nicely. I’ve also taken a few days to myself to spend time with my girlfriend and my family, as well as price my basketball card collection. Sometimes a little clarity of the mind can do wonders. Taylor and Delp have been helping out other local bands lately with lineup shortages. Taylor has been playing with his side project (The Stihlness) and Delp has been filling in the bass duties in At Large. Since the winter months are sometimes unpredictable when it comes the the weather (if you’ve ever spent time in Virginia, you’ll know what I’m talking about), things like side projects can help keep you playing. You can’t let it interfere though. As far as the future plans, there really aren’t any except for playing more shows. We’re going to try to book as much this winter as we possibly can, although the shadow of getting snowed out still lurks nearby. This is common though. Right now, the wind is blowing like a motherfucker outside, which could knock the power out at any given time. With that, I’m going to leave you all so I don’t accidentally lose this whole damn thing to a power outage. Sleep well…

-Darren

As you know, we haven’t been updating this like we should be. Hell, the only one of us that gets online at all anymore is me, so keep in mind that most of this is from my perspective. As far as the CD release goes, the world has definitely greeted it with open arms. We’ve already sold a huge amount, not counting all of the ones that were preordered. So far, we’ve heard nothing but great things about it, which is awesome. We’re always glad to hear that people enjoy what we do. As far as shows go, we had an awesome time playing up in Roanoke earlier this month. All of the bands were fuckin’ amazing, and they were really cool dudes to hang out with as well. The Nexus Recordings staff were damn cool dudes as well, so we want to thank them once again for letting us jam. We’re coming back up to Roanoke in October, so that should be a blast. We’re really enjoying the response that everyone has had from our live shows lately. Fuck, we just like to rock out! Our official CD release party is coming up September 9th on the corner of Main Street in Independence, and we’ll have plenty of copies of the new CD for sale there for $10 (which is cheaper than the website price due to the lack of shipping charges). But yeah, we’re staying busy as hell with everything, so that is awesome. Also, I want to use this time to nullify any rumors that you may have heard recently concerning the side project that is starting up. First of all, Greg nor I have any intentions of making this a full time project…Suddenly Silence will always be full time for us. Secondly, no one is mad at anyone else, and Taylor and Danny are both fully aware of what is going on. I assure everyone, whether you are a fan or someone just looking for gossip, that we’re only starting this thing up for a little bit of fun and variety. I’m not saying this to offend anyone out there, but if you didn’t hear it straight from us, then take heed. Being a criminal justice student now for a couple of years, I know how people think. We are creatures who like to gossip, and 99% of the time it ends up in drama. We hate drama, we just want to play some fuckin’ music. But anyway, things are going fuckin’ awesome for us! Thanks to everyone for dropping us emails (sorry that I still haven’t answered some…I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!), and we especially thank you all for the positive feedback on the CD. Tell all of your friends that if they don’t buy a copy, they aren’t cool. hahaha…Anyway, I figured I’d let everyone know what we’ve been up too. Feel free to drop us a line and say hey…we like email and shit.

-Darren

It has definitely been a while since we’ve wrote in this thing, so we figured we’d at least give everyone an update or two. First off, we’ve had some down time lately to just jam with each other instead of working on new material. Our practices have recently become jam sessions. It feels good to play the material on “A Simple Device” and not have to worry about tweaking things here and there. We just play it now because it’s fuckin’ fun to play! We were suppose to have a shitload of shows over the past few weeks, but for some reason none of them worked out a bit for us. Whether it be scheduling problems or vehicle problems, something kept us from playing them. The last show we did was a fuckin’ blast though. It was the July 4th show in Independence, and we had a blast jamming with everyone, lighting Danny’s Fender Jazz Bass on fire, and sharing the stage with one of the greatest drummers around: our very own producer, Tim “Smurf” Parks. I can honestly say that I’ve never had more fun. The next show we have is the Nexus Recordings show in Salem, Va on August 4th. We’re showcasing a 30 minute set with all new material from “A Simple Device”. We’ll be jamming with some totally awesome bands: Speak of the Devil, Savior Bullets, and Madrone. We’re not sure what’s going to go on for sure right now as far as more shows go, but we are looking to have our official CD release around August 26th or so. This show isn’t set in stone yet, so stay tuned. Speaking of the CD’s, we finally got our first shipment in from California today. I must say that they are fuckin’ perfect and we can’t wait to release them. It’s a great feeling knowing that you have just brought 8 months of hard work to a close. Now we’re just going to play our asses off. Anyway, I figured I’d let everyone know about the news, and we are definitely starting to hear a buzz about the new CD. We want to thank everyone who has sent us any type of email/message and supported us (or dissed us…we can take the heat). Keep them coming!

-Darren

We finished the mix down and mastering the past couple of weeks. I have never spent this much time on a CD before in my life. You can definitely tell though. Everything is in the right place. All of the static is in the right places, all of the effects are right, all off the tones are right…everything that we heard in our minds is set perfectly into the music. I know I pretty well stated this in my last post, but goddamn this thing is hot! We’re finishing up the design work now and gearing up to send it off for replication. We changed our July first date as well. We were invited to come out and jam at a Battle of the Bands, so we’re going to go throw down a bit. I never really liked playing in them because it brought the element of competition into music, but we decided since we haven’t played one in a while that it would be a good night just to go and have some fun jamming and hanging out with a shitload of other bands. We’re going to start planning the CD release party after we get everything squared away. We’re wanting to make it fuckin’ huge…invite every band that we can possibly think of to jam with us. That’s what it’s all about man. So, we’ll be out and about a lot in the coming weeks, so things should be interesting. I apologize for not having any amazingly funny stories to write, but nothing really interesting has happened yet aside from Taylor and Danny’s usual shenanagans. It’s coming though…

Darren

We finally finished tracking some of the last tracks yesterday. It’s getting closer to being finished, and we’re excited as hell. During the course of my time playing in bands and recording 5 CD’s prior to this one, I can honestly say that I have never been more pleased with the way a CD has turned out. I’m not knocking the older CD’s nor the engineers who put so much time into them, but I can honestly say that this is the first time that everything that I have been hearing in my head has been put onto CD in it’s original form. We also learned that big, roomy studios are not a necessity. All of the recording for this CD has been done at Basement In A Box Studios in Independence, Va, which is basically a spare room in our engineer’s house. Taylor thinks the place is haunted. I don’t think it is, but it is a kick ass thing to think about. Smurf is an excellent engineer, and his production skills are fucking incredible. We didn’t want this record to sound squeaky clean like a lot of our older stuff was. The reason is simple: the music we make isn’t squeaky clean. It’s fuckin’ loud, it’s rough, and it shouldn’t be recorded in the same manner that a Jazz recording would be. So, we fucked with a lot of different miking techniques and used a lot of other equipment than we have in the past to get the sound we were looking for. The acoustics of the room are fuckin’ perfect, and that enabled us to have total control over the sound. I think the biggest thing that sets this CD off is the use of static…you’ll notice it here and there when listening to some of the endings/beginnings of the songs, as well as some of the guitar tracks that we fucked with. I fuckin’ love it. It adds a sense of ambience (which you’ll hear as well throughout the tracks), and it basically sounds like nothing more than us. Plain and simple. All I have to say is that we’re excited for the release of this thing. We still have a few more things to do before it’s finished, but it’s definitely getting there. It sucks that we’ve had to keep people waiting since fuckin’ November, but I personally think that it will be well worth the wait. We’ll be on the road soon, so we’re gearing up for that now as well. It’s going to be a damn long summer for me personally due to the work load that I’m carrying, but I have a feeling things will turn out smoothly. We’re trying to book as much as possible now, so it should be fun. As for now, I’m fuckin’ beat. We’ll drop more updates as things unfold. For right now, just come on out to the shows!

-Darren