Three days is a short amount of time taken to make a record. Or maybe it’s the perfect amount of time.
Watch enough of that old VH1 television program “Behind the Music,” and you’ll learn many a musician has wasted colossal amounts of time and money in a recording studio, spending weeks to record something forgettable. Use your time wisely, be succinct and efficient and maybe a three-day recording session is all you need to drop a debut that’s clean, crisp and cool.
Local band Dana Ariel and The Coming Up Roses did just that, as guitar player and vocalist Ariel, guitar player Alex Forsthoff, bass player Jerad Bussell and drummer Carter Colia zipped into Scooter’s Place last fall to record “Wild Woman,” Ariel’s debut, an album of funky-folk and laid-back, subtle soul and R&B.
Three days in the studio may actually be a liberal description for the recording sessions. With no individual instrument seclusion and no studio trickery, the full band was actually only there a third of the time, banging out the record as if they were on stage.
“All of the tracks were actually done in one take. We didn’t do any overdubbing or anything, it was pretty much all of us playing together as once,” Ariel said. “I added a lot of backing vocals, which took one whole day. All together, the band was only there for one day, and the rest was me in there figuring out my other stuff.”
That simplistic approach adds to the overall sound. “Wild Woman” is a fresh record from a salt-of-the-earth band with a straight-ahead approach to songwriting and recording. Songs weren’t beaten into the ground through tedious rehearsal, instead being developed as the tape was rolling in the studio, with Ariel learning a bit about the ins and outs of recording as the sessions progressed.
“The title track ‘Wild Woman’ was actually the least practiced song on the whole entire album; we practiced that for maybe two or three rehearsals before, so that was really fresh for us,” she said. “I think in the end that really helped. It gave me a lot of space to be creative with the backing vocals and harmonies. It was just a really organic sound. We didn’t have a lot of production, just very simple, pretty much live tracks, and I think for our first album together as a band it was really helpful to just be organic and fresh. Yeah, three days was definitely interesting. It was a learning process.”
It’s a hip record. Ariel drops soft, hushed vocals on cuts like “Bluebird,” a tune that starts as a slow ballad before zipping up to a bouncy groover, held tight by a solid rhythm section with Forsthoff sliding in slick licks from beginning to end.
“Josephine” has an old-school soul feel; “Midnight Sun” has a festival-folk feel; and the title track has both 21st century indie rock guts among a Motown vibe.
One of the stand-out stars of the album are those harmonies of Ariel’s, as the album is stacked with layer after layer of backing vocals.
Guitar player Forsthoff, who was a founding member of the one-time local band The Outskirts, and currently plays in the semi-bluegrass band People We know is stoked to be a part of this chapter of Ariel’s music career.
“Dana has a straightforward songwriting style that is driven by feel and rhythm rather than technicality. Often, her choruses and verses will have similar chord progressions, but the way she changes rhythm, dynamics and the feel of the tune drives the song progression,” Forsthoff said. “She impressed me by bringing songs that none of us had heard to the first practice, teaching us the chord progressions and then jumping right in.”
More information about Dana Ariel and The Coming Up Roses can be found at www.danarielmusic.weebly.com.
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
