Brad Zeffren

End of '09 Update

It's been a while since I've posted here. Music has been keeping me pretty busy. Hurricane Chaser has continued to play shows around the Northwest. We've been working on a lot of new material, and are starting to get geared up to make another record in the first half of 2010. The sound is definitely getting a bit more rockin and experimental. Stay tuned for some clips as the sounds come along!

I've been able to produce some great artists in the last few months. This past spring saw the finishing of the second record by Nathan Wade and the Dark Pioneers. Overdubs were done at Crackle and Pop, and mixing took me back to Electrokitty Studio. I'm really proud of how this record sounds. You can check it out and download it at their bandcamp site.

In October I got to go out to London Bridge Studio for the first time to work with a band called Gin Betty. What great room, and the vintage Neve console is something special. Everything that you put through it comes out sounding amazing. Not long after that, I was back at London Bridge with The Dusty 45's. There's some real classic material on this record! We're in the home stretch of recording, and then we're set to mix in the early part of 2010 with a release soon after.

The Dusty 45's sessions at London Bridge

Somewhere in between all the shows and studio sesisons, I made an acoustic record with Kristen Ward in my apartment!! The budget was super tight, so we all called in some favors and borrowed some gear, and turned my place into the coolest recording studio in all of Ballard for four intense days. At this point my neighbors have gotten used to the fact that I live life loudly. The only drag is that I lost some food as a result of having to turn off my refrigerator to keep the noise down while recording... a small price to pay. We mixed it at Electrokitty, and everyone is pretty happy with it. Look for that one later this winter. It's non stop haunting melodies sung with Kristen's incredible, unmistakable voice, which really has grown to new heights with this project. I think you're gonna like it!

I'm also continuing an ongoing project with a young rock band called Viva la Villians. It's nice to work on some heavy rock again, having spent so much time in the roots/americana world over the last few years, not that I don't love that too! As a drunk man dancing the waltz with a hand truck once told me at a show, "Sometimes you gotta just rock the rock." We're currently recording vocals and some final guitar parts, and then that one should be out this winter.

See ya soon,

Seattle Times... Showtime!

Last week I did an interview with Nicole Brodeur in advance of a saturday night show at the Tractor. The night was the CD Release party for Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs new record. Hurricane Chaser played, as did Kristen Ward.

It was the kind of night I'd been dreaming of for a long time, ever since putting the band together... a totally solid lineup made up of really great friends, and a release party for a record I'm very proud to have been a part of! Sometime in the near future there will be some video footage of the night. We had some cameras rolling, and some mics in the air, and now we're going through it all to find the gems.

It had been a little while since I had seen Kristen play with her band, not since Greg Garcia joined up on drums, and they were absolutely fantastic and inspiring! Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs were amazing as usual. They are getting so tight as a combo.

All in all, the night was a big party. It was kind of amazing to look at the merch table and see a whole mess of records that I helped make. What an honor to be able to do this!

2008 - A year of ups and downs and ups again

About a year ago, I found myself with a bunch of songs and no band. After working behind the board for years and years, I longed for the days of crusty rehearsal spaces, ringing ears, and the thrill of getting a new song out into the world. Thanks to some crafty wording in a Craig's List ad, I managed to sift through a bunch of responses and find a group of musicians that really work well together. I also found that there's more to singing than opening your mouth! The hardest part is getting over the fear of sounding bad, and just letting it fly...well that and singing on pitch! It was also a great experience to see what these songs that were kicking around in my head turned into when in other people's hands.

While the band, now called Hurricane Chaser, was getting the songs together that would ultimately become our first album, Chroma Sound was entering it's last days. Running a studio well is a tall order, and running one that makes money is damned near impossible. It was very difficult to come to terms with what was becoming clear, that Chroma Sound, as cool and vibey a studio as it was, was not sustainable in the long run. During this period, I finished up an E.P. for Nathan Wade and the Dark Pioneers, that he affectionately called "The Chroma Session". Kind of ironic, especially when we started talking about working on a followup and Chroma was no longer an option. Nathan is a fantastic writer with a soulful voice the reminds me a bit of Chris Whitley at times.

Also during the early spring of 2008, Hurricane Chaser began production of our first record, "The Map is Not The Territory". I've played various instruments as needed on records that I've worked on, but this was the first time that I was attempting to wear the hats of producer, engineer, and artist. At times, it was perilous, even dangerous. I would occasionally lay down a take, and in my excitement to hear it back, race over to the console without taking off my headphones, causing mild whiplash and some damage to the headphone system! Going back and forth from artist to producer made things take a bit longer, especially when it came time to judge vocals. Since I had never recorded myself singing, it took a few attempts before I even got used to how my voice sounded on playback. This meant that deciding which takes were best would take me longer than when I produce for other folks. It also gave me a new appreciation what those vocalists felt like as I made them try it "one more time". If it wasn't against my basic instinct for self-preservation, I probably would have punched myself in the face!

As recording Hurricane Chaser was winding down, I did an album with We Wrote The Book On Connectors. It was those guys that showed me the coolest thing ever. These guys are great, and hilarious. Since the dissolution of the studio was beginning, it was a real help to be working on a project that was really fun.

Once these projects were wrapped up, it became much easier to mentally part ways with Chroma, and begin working as a freelance producer. It had been a long time since I'd worked in any other studio, so I figured the the Hurricane Chaser record would be a good start. I did the mixing at Electrokitty studio, which has a fantastic control room for mixing with a monster SSL 9000j console and a ton of great outboard gear. It turned out to be good for the project, as I was forced to break all my old mixing habits and work in a totally new room. Breaking habits is never a bad thing!

Summer passed, the record wrapped, and Chroma was closed and sold off. All of these things might have lead to a disastrous depression were it not for the band, and for new projects I started during the Fall/Winter of '08. It was strange, but I felt very liberated after I got over the bummer of losing the studio, and suddenly I found myself busier than I had been in months. One door closes, another one opens.

The first post-chroma project was with another record with Nathan Wade, symbolically working on the follow up to "The Chroma Session". This one is a full length offering called "The Gospel of Rust". These songs are amazing. Nathan has this post-apocalyptic americana thing going that is truly unique, and very well done. The musicianship with these guys is insane! A treat to work with. Basic tracks were done at Two Sticks Audio, with the majority of the tracks taking place live off the floor. I was a bit nervous, having grown so used to doing my thing at my own place, but it was clear that Jason McGerr and his crew at Two Sticks were cut from the same cloth as I was when it comes to the places we like to record in. It feels like it's built and run by musicians, because it is! Shortly after finishing basic tracks with Nathan's band, I was back at Two sticks working on a E.P. for a young band called Gryphon. This was the first real intense recording they had done, and it was great to see that new found excitement you get when you first hear your songs sound "like a record".

Late Nov. found me traveling out to Ellensburg Wa. to do some pre-production rehearsal with Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs. This band is great, and if you've never seen them live, you are missing one of the best female vocalists out there... Check 'em out!

I spent some time in early Dec working on the Gryphon and Nathan Wade records at Johnny Sangster's little recording "flat" Crackle and Pop. It's a cool small studio that's perfect for overdubing parts where a large facility isn't needed ie: vocals, guitars, shaker, triangle, celtic harp, etc...

I finished up that stretch at Crackle and Pop and jumped immediately back into Two Sticks for five days working on the Star Anna record. By this point, I'm feeling right at home at Two Sticks with the gear and the great staff there. Working with Star's band was fantastic. There's a real family vibe about all of them, and the chemistry of the session reflected that. A sense of humor is important to have when you are cooped up with the same people for hours and hours day after day, and these guys are a bunch of smart asses! Again, most of the record is coming from the takes live off the floor, including a number of Star's vocals. Holy shit, can she sing!! We were lucky enough to have two songs done with the live first take for everyone. Those are what you live for when you make a record. They don't come easy, and it's often not the songs that you think it will be. It's kind of like writing songs...you have to be ready to catch it when the moment happens, and when it does you get goosebumps. It was as perfect a way to cap off a challenging, dissapointing, rewarding, depressing, and liberating year as I could have hoped for.

Looking ahead to 2009, the Hurricane Chaser record will come out, and I'll finish producing the records I'm involved with. Beyond that, I'll hopefully be playing lots of shows with lots of great bands, and making a some more records along the way. A lot to look forward to...