The Making of "Lvl. 1" (Part 1 of 3)

Part One: The Final Weeks

“I’m going on record and saying that we’re eight million times better a band now than we ever have been. I don’t know how anybody thought we were good before,” Evan Sammons said on Jan. 11, as Last Chance to Reason were holed up in the Augusta apartment of guitarist AJ Harvey and bassist Chris Corey, recording the final demos before their trip to a much more professional recording environment: The Basement Recording Studio in North Carolina.

“If you hear this album and you think we were better before, you’re an idiot,” Sammons said with a smile. “This album’s going to be fucking awesome.”

His point practically proving itself, the group lounged in the kitchen, reading lyric sheets as Rob Delaney recorded the vocals to a demo at that point known as “Strange Ass.” The song, which would eventually become “Those Were Real Witch Bones,” had a chorus so powerful and catchy the band struggled for words. With feet tapping and faces glowing, the one adjective they could agree on was “epic.”

Nearly a year prior, Last Chance to Reason booked studio time with Jamie King, the renowned producer of over 350 metal and rock groups including Between the Buried and Me, Through the Eyes of the Dead, A Prayer For Cleansing and KillWhitneyDead. With the studio time booked, the group took on the task of composing their best work.

“We’re playing on our strengths and not trying to be something that we’re not. We’re not like, ‘oh, we have to play something that’s like BTBAM or The Red Chord or Into The Moat because we’re a tech metal band.’ No, instead of putting eight million notes in this measure, let’s just pick every note and be really careful with that to make the best riff possible,” Sammons said of the writing process.

“Everything is a lot tighter,” Harvey added. “We’ve grown as musicians, definitely.” As Sammons stressed after the band’s debut show with the new lineup in October, a great deal of thought went into every single riff. The members concurred that they were essentially the same band, only much improved.

And so, after months of writing, rehearsing, recording, and reworking, nine songs were ready to roll, with three planned interludes. The interludes would be used to segue between songs and would “incorporate layers of synth material that [could] be even more experimental than what’s in the songs,” according to Sammons.

With two weeks to go until the Jan. 28 recording began, there was no shortage of gray areas concerning the album. Song titles, the album title, and the opening song were all up in the air. “We’ve talked about it and thought about it and wrote the songs all down in different orders,” Harvey said. The group had been stacking the arrangement of their songs up to classic metal albums like Metallica’s black album and Pantera’s “Vulgar Display of Power” to get a feel for prime song flow.

As for the album title, Harvey wasn’t worried, saying, “I think one day someone’s just going to say something and it’s going to be like, that’s it. There we go.”

“It’s probably going to be right up to the end,” Sammons said. With the last two weeks at home, the band needed only to finish their demos and practice the material.

“We need to make it so we’re not just executing [this stuff], but grooving the fuck out of it,” Sammons said. “First you need to execute it, but second, you need the attitude. That’s what makes what you’re playing good. It’s not what you’re playing, it’s how you’re playing it. You can play a riff that’s awesome and it doesn’t feel like anything or you can play a riff that, you know, anybody can play, but you make it the most kick-ass thing you’ve ever heard.”

“We’re going to concentrate on that; making everything brutal, making everything groove,” Harvey said. The band’s constant goal to appeal to both the technically minded musician and the average metalhead clearly underscored their philosophy.

In Sammons’ words, the goal was clear: “The task at hand is making the best record possible right now.”

Mission stated. With two weeks of non-stop recording and work with a professional producer, could the task be as concisely accomplished?

Next in The Making of "Lvl. 1" : Recording at The Basement in North Carolina, Jamie King's comments on the band, each member's feedback on the experience, the final tracklist and song titles, and initial impressions of the album in its complete, final form.