Dave and I met in college 7 years ago through a weekly jam session he was house drummer for, and I really got to know him and his playing well during my time in the area, even though we went to different universities in different states, about 6 miles apart.
Dave has always had an incredibly mature philosophy of drums, composition, and music in general. Dave often knows much much more than he cares to let on about practically anything musical. He shreds guitar, has dabbles in film score, has massive audio engineering chops, and these great big musical ears.
Dave's always holding your hand when he's behind you on drums. He'll never leave you hanging; he respects the role of serving the groove and the music, and never does more than necessary, which takes a tremendous amount of self-restraint and awareness; two things I know absolutely nothing about.
Dave might as well be Stonehenge because his time feel is so rock solid. He gave me some no nonsense drums that were recorded very crisp and bright, with so much space and little rhythmic accents here and there, for flavor.
So for this track, "Veranda", I used Dave's super clean drums and tried to make them sound like a literal drum machine, then tried to come up with a bassline with the most severe slump I can, since I normally rely on playing with drunk feel when I'm tracking my own drums.
I also used the opportunity to delve a bit into rap, mixing rap vocals, and more advanced sound design for different eras or styles of flow. The first verse is more 90's West Coast flow, with the lyrical tone of 90's East Coast, whereas the 2nd verse has more of an early '10's vibe to it, and both verses borrow from the timbral palette of the '00's in different ways.
lyrics
Verse 1:
Lets get down to brass tacks.
I’m spitting hard facts...
…of fallacy
Culpable strategies, of analogies.
Prime time, rhymes like a fine wine.
Dangling grapes, from the vine of consciousness.
