| Band | Studio CD | Live CD |
I'm pretty sure Hardpan came about from Joseph Parsons. We all knew each other having met at various gigs and on the road (plus Joseph, Todd and Chris are Blue Rose Label mates) over the years. It was Joseph who first mentioned the idea to me of us all recording together and that was a couple of years ago. I expressed an interest in being involved. Later I heard the news that Todd Thibaud was interested and also wanted to be a partner. For some reason nothing ever happened although I would hear from time to time that everyone was still interested. Next thing I knew, Spring of 2001, it was going to happen if we could all get on the same page time wise. Blue Rose Records was quite interested in supporting such a endeavor and had agreed to fund the project. Cool, and was I still interested? But of course!! All 4 of us have our "solo" careers which means we are all busy as hell so scheduling was going to be a problem. The other major difficulty is that I pretty much live in Europe full time and getting us all on one continent at the same time can be a problem. Fortunatly, at the time our "band" was made official and we started searching for a compatable recording date, I had already purchased a ticket and made plans to visit family and friends in Seattle. My scheduled time to be in the states was from Sept.2-20. As it turned out everybody else was "free" in September and so, with some adjustments and finagling, we all agreed to meet in Tucson, Arizona at Chris Burroughs' spanking brand new studio to make a record. We would all meet there on September 10, 2001. JUPITER BALLS ?: I guess I get to take the credit for our first band name. I came up with the brilliant (or so I thought) name of "Jupiter Balls". Actually, and to be honest, I considered "Leaky Sparrow" to be ultra cool as well but............. (although I think we get to use Leaky Sparrow as the name of our publishing company!). What does it all mean you ask? Bad night time dreams Terry? Well I was just trying to inject a little bit of edge and humour to this project. I did NOT want to make another CSN&Y record. Actually I was thinking more in the line of Thelonius Monk or an acoustic Sonic Youth. I mean, you can't really write a song like "Hotel California" if your in a band called "Leaky Sparrow". See what I mean? Anyway, although I didn't hear an enormous roar of approval with the name, Jupiter Balls by default became our band name for about 3 months. When we actually got to Tucson and started to record we all (myself included) began to sense the potential ramifications of being in a band called Jupiter Balls. "Anyone got a better idea", we asked? Well we kicked around lot's of ideas but nothing really grabbed us. Most of the names had a very western kinda feel but sitting in the middle of a very large and very hot desert I guess it's natural. All those margaritas? (Tucson Sunrise's - Tequila & OJ??) didn't hurt either for the creativity and after a few rounds Chris mentioned that he had always liked the name and visual image of hardpanners (which was a nickname for the miners who used that kind of mining a lot during the California gold rush days of 1849). Hardpan itself the dictionary says is "any layer of clay underlying soft soil." Voilà. I believe it was about 03H00 on September 18 that we all shook hands and agreed to be in a band named Hardpan.
Chris, Todd and Joseph have a number of albums released in Europe by Blue Rose Records, and Terry Lee has albums out on Glitterhouse. They have all been leaders of their own bands for years and toured Europe extensively. And they are four very different personalities. They knew it would be a challenge but everyone got on with the spirit of a band. None of them can recall exactly when or how they agreed to do this thing together, but they are pretty sure it was all Joseph's idea.
That idea was floating around for a couple of years, and through various meetings and European tours together, the four of them decided to come to Tucson and make a record. It started off fun. Lot's of fun. Todd, Joseph and Terry Lee flew to Tucson to make the record at The Studio, a building at Chris's home that he converted into a recording studio in the summer of 2001. The paint was still drying when everyone converged in Tucson.
So they headed for a Mexican restaurant and got very drunk and joked and laughed all night. All night. That was the night of September 10, 2001. On September 11, of course, the world changed. Like everyone else, they were glued to the TV for most of the day. None of them wanted to play music. But it was their job to make this record, and they only had ten days to do it before everyone flew home. They figured if taxi drivers and bank tellers had to work, they did, too. And screw those bastards, anyway, they can't stop them from doing what they have to do. So late that night they started learning each others songs. And over the next ten days they rehearsed and recorded the Hardpan album. |
It was a unique experience for all of them, subtly adapting to each others styles. They recorded every track virtually live. Every lead vocal is live. Most of the back-up vocals and almost all the guitars are live. And even the percussion is live except for one song (no drummers in this group). A couple of songs are even first takes with no overdubs. They are proud of this. Each morning they were still glued to the TV, and nobody slept well for days. And they have to say that they probably drank more than they normally would have under normal circumstances. Well, maybe, hard to say with this bunch of guys... But they came together and played their best and captured the event. The album has four distinct moods, depending on who is doing the singing. It all worked because they were all playing together, backing each other up as best they could, and putting the world out of their minds for a while to make good music. We can't say yet whether there will be a second Hardpan album, their solo careers keep each of them very busy. |
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