Making the Album: Easter Eggs

Throughout the album, there are several little hidden treasures that many people either don’t notice or can’t identify. Being privy to those little things makes us feel special, so we thought we’d share some of them with you so you can feel special too.

Exile: In one of the choruses, after “I’m running out of time,” Evan’s trumpet part plays the melody from Pink Floyd’s “Time.” That same chorus, after “running out of money,” he also plays the guitar riff from Pink Floyd’s “Money,” but it’s not as audible.

Crooked Time: Before we go into the Cindy Lauper tune in the middle, you can hear me chuckling and saying something. I was trying to record the vocal and Jessi kept making me laugh. After several takes getting scrapped because of laughter, I finally just said “Go in the other room or something.” She did, and I was able to finish my vocals. We were getting close to the final mixes before we realized that we’d forgotten to trim that out, but by that time, we had subliminally grown fond of it, so we left it in.

No More: I had taken the mic and the laptop outside to record the crickets the night that we did “No More.” Jessi called me in for dinner as I was almost finishing up. In the song, toward the end, Jessi pauses and you can hear her calling me twice.

Half A Leg: The tuba sound throughout is actually Evan’s trumpet. We dropped it down an octave or two to get that effect.

No More: The eerie “howl” is Evan blowing into a conch shell with a lot of reverb and a pan from left to right.

Half A Leg: Jessi recorded the vocal part a few different times a few different ways. She did one version straight through (which is what you hear on the album), another version done as a monologue in a dramatic tone, and yet another version in a thick cockney accent like Eliza Doolittle. Snippets from the monologue version can be heard in the background on the album.

Love: The people shouting “Love” in the background were friends of ours that get together for dinner on the first Wednesday of the month for what we call “The Hungry Hump.” We stuck a mic in the middle of the group and pointed at them to cue them when to shout, since we couldn’t all have headphones. We felt the banter and laughter in between shouts added to the feel of the song. At one point you can hear a phone ring, and you can also hear our friend Jim turn to Jessi and say “Are you trying to out-do me?” Really faint, but it’s there.