After thinking about it for twenty years, I finally did it: I wrote and recorded a full-length album. What a frustrating-yet-rewarding process it’s been. Of all the creative projects I’ve completed over the years, this album has been second only to my Behcet’s disease memoir in terms of personal satisfaction.
In this post, I’m going to explain how my debut album, Subliminal Assassin, came into existence. The whole thing was produced in less than two months, but took two decades to make happen.
Why I recorded an album
Table of Contents
Music’s always been a big part of my life. My father had a massive classic-rock record collection that I spent countless hours listening to as a child. Everyday after school, I’d put on some Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, or one of the many other kick-ass bands and rock out. But I didn’t just want to listen to music. I wanted to play it, too.
At the age of 7, I began taking classical piano lessons. At 11, that switched to drum lessons. And when I was 13, I got my first electric guitar. I loved that thing with all my heart. Throughout my teens, I’d regularly skip school to stay home and practice.
When I got into my late teens, I joined my first band. They were just starting out – and so I was – so it was a perfect fit. We played a handful of gigs around New England, mostly in front of small crowds. It was a lot of fun and a wonderful learning experience. But due to differences with another band member, I left after about a year.
Almost immediately after leaving that first band, I was asked to join another. They were a nationally touring band signed to a New York record label and had just lost their guitar player. I’d been a fan of theirs and jumped at the opportunity. After two weeks of nightly rehearsals, we left to embark on an East Coast tour the label had set up for us.
That was the first of several tours which took me all over the continent. Unlike my first band, we often played in front of thousands of people every night. For a couple years, I got to live the rockstar dream: the traveling, fans, groupies, free booze at every club, etc. But I also got to see the shady side of the music business. And I didn’t like it one bit.
After a couple years, I’d had my fill. I decided to leave the band and had no intention of joining any others. I wanted to go to college and do some other things with my life. So I put the recording industry in my rearview.
For the next twenty years, I continued playing music – just not in a band. The idea of writing and recording a solo album floated around in the back of my mind for a long time. I’d come up with a million little riffs over the years and had plenty of material to work with. So in December of 2021, I decided to finally put together the solo album which became Subliminal Assassin.
Where to listen to Subliminal Assassin
 
 
 
 
How I recorded the album
During the summer of 2021, I built an isolation (vocal) booth in my basement. It wasn’t originally built for recording music: it was to have someplace to record podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube videos, and the like. But of course an isolation booth can be used to record vocals – which is why they’re often called vocal booths.
Everything else needed to record an album was already in the basement: an electric drum kit, two guitar amps, two bass amps, a couple microphones, and all the cables necessary to hook everything up. Once I brought my guitars, ukulele, and laptop down, I was ready to go.
For those of you who are interested, here’s a list of all the equipment I used to record Subliminal Assassin:
- Roland TD-1 DMK electronic drum kit
- Ibanez SR305E 5-string bass guitar
- Fender HSS Stratocaster 6-string electric guitar
- Ibanez RG921QM premium 6-string electric guitar
- Ibanez PF5ECE-NT-14-01 6-string acoustic/electric guitar
- Luna concert ukulele
- Palatino violin/fiddle
- Crate FlexWave 15R 15-watt guitar amp
- Rogue RB-30B 30-watt bass amp
- Majority RS Pro condenser microphone
- Tonor USB condenser microphone
- 2 mini wooden maracas
- Lenovo IdeaPad S340-15API Touch 12GB RAM
- Benringer UCA222 USB audio interface
- DigiTech RP355 multi-effects pedal
- Fruity Loops
- Audacity
The recording process itself was disorganized to say the least. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, just kinda figuring things out as I went. But it was all a wonderful learning experience. If I decide to record more music in the future, there should be a lot fewer hiccups along the way.
One of the biggest mistakes I made at first was using a metronome instead of a click track when recording the drums. Having a click track makes it much easier to add other instruments later on. By the time I figured this out, I’d already recorded a few songs. I ended up scrapping and re-recording all but one of those songs after using Fruity Loops to make a click track for each.
For most songs on Subliminal Assassin, I followed the same order of recording:
- Drums
- Rhythm guitar(s)
- Bass guitar
- Main vocals
- Lead guitar (if applicable)
- Additional vocals
- Any other instruments (if applicable)
The actual recording – frustrating as it could be at times – was the easy part. The real challenge came when it was time to mix everything. That’s something I didn’t really have any experience with. Again, I just kinda learned as I went.
I used the same software, Audacity, to both record and mix the album for two reasons: it’s 100% free and I was already familiar with how to use it. While Audacity is great for recording things like podcasts, I wish I’d used something with more features to mix the album.
Subliminal Assassin
Subliminal Assassin is basically a mishmash of random riffs and lyrics I came up with over the past 20 years. There’s no unifying theme or genre. Because of this, it’s hard to explain the album as a whole. So I’ll break it down song by song, offering a little insight into how each track came to be. The first five tracks feature heavily distorted guitars, while the rest of the album does not.
1. 2020 Vision
I came up with the guitar riffs for this song about a decade ago. In the summer of 2020 while sitting on the beach, I wrote an early version of what would later become the lyrics. The only part of this song that was written during the recording of Subliminal Assassin was the guitar solo. Listen on YouTube Music.
2. Nihilism
About five years ago, I came up with the guitar riffs for this song. They’re a bit Van Halen-ish but I liked them. The rapid, repetitive, high-pitched harmonic was influenced by the song Eyes Without A Face by Rage Against The Machine. The lyrics were written recently. Listen on YouTube Music.
3. I Got 20 On It
My favorite hip hop beat of all time is I Got 5 On It by Luniz: good song, great beat. For years, I thought about using it for something. I had several ideas, but ultimately ended up turning the famous hip hip beat into a rock beat. Staying true to the theme of the original song, I wrote the pro-cannabis lyrics last year. Listen on YouTube Music.
4. Symphony of Black Lightening
I first created the beat for this song about a decade ago while playing with Fruity Loops. It samples Symphony of Destruction by Megadeth as well as Fade To Black and Ride The Lightening by Metallica. The song’s name is obvious derived from the ones it samples. The lyrics were written late last year. Listen on YouTube Music.
5. Ostrich Lessons
This song was written in its entirety somewhere between 5-10 years ago. Aside from a few small lyrical tweaks, it wasn’t changed at all during the recording process. Listen on YouTube Music.
6. In The Pocket
This is one of two songs that were written entirely during the recording of Subliminal Assassin. It also might be my favorite track on the album. The fast-slow-fast-slow riff was inspired by the song Todo un Palo by the Argentinian band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. I’d been listening to a lot of Spanish-language music and loved this song in particular.
In The Pocket is also one of two songs that I had to transpose down from its original key so I could actually sing it (the other being Nihilism). Listen on YouTube Music.
7. Sobriety Song
This is the oldest song on the album. It was written about 20 years ago when I was in my early twenties during a brief period of sobriety. Aside from a few recent lyrical tweaks, the entire song was written in the early 2000’s. Ironically, it would take another decade before I actually got sober for good.
Obviously, the lyrics are meant to be a joke. I thought it was funny that you could call yourself sober but still be on all kinds of drugs. At the time, I met a lot of people who were on a handful of prescription (and other) drugs but went around telling everyone they’re sober. I also thought it was funny that so many drug names rhyme. For the record, I’m not on morphine, codeine, clonidine, or ketamine… anymore. Listen on YouTube Music.
8. It’s Just A Ride
About a decade ago, I got two turntables and a mixer to play around with. The beats and most of the samples were recorded back then. However, my two verses were written and recorded while making the album. Also, the Morty Sanchez sample and second Bill Hicks sample were added recently. Listen on YouTube Music.
9. Civilization and Its Disconnects
I came up with the main riff for this song somewhere between 5-10 years ago. I’m not a huge Cake fan (although I love the song No Phone), but this riff reminds me of them. It’s played on an acoustic/electric guitar going through an octave effect. The lyrics were written during the recording process. The name is a play on the title of one of Sigmund Freud’s books. Listen on YouTube Music.
10. Shake It
Aside from the riff played during the chorus, this entire song was written recently. Really, I just wanted an excuse to use my mini-maracas in a song. They inspired the lyrics as well as the song itself. I wanted at least one upbeat song on the album and this is it. Listen on YouTube Music.
11. Done
This song evolved slowly over time. The main riff was written about a decade ago. The lyrics were written over the past couple of years. Listen on YouTube Music.
12. Behcet’s Song (You’re Not Alone)
This song is about living with Behcet’s disease and was inspired by the book You Are Not Alone by Joanne Zeis. I came up with the ukulele riff a couple months before deciding to record an album. The lyrics were written during the recording process.
I bought the ukulele played on the recording in 2015 and hadn’t changed the strings once. Before recording, I replaced them with a new set. But I didn’t like the sound of the new strings so I ended up replacing those with a new set of the same strings the ukulele originally came with. Listen on YouTube Music.
13. Dark Winter
I’m not sure exactly when I came up with the main guitar riff, but it was probably about ten years ago. The lyrics were written during the recording process. Listen on YouTube Music.
Conclusion
On the whole, I enjoyed recording Subliminal Assassin. Though there are things about it I don’t love, there’s a lot I’m happy with. That seems to be the way I feel after completing a lot of creative projects.
The question is, will I record more music in the future? That’ll depend on the response this music gets. If people generally like Subliminal Assassin, I probably will. If they don’t, I likely won’t.
Either way, at least I can say I wrote, recorded, and produced a full-length album. Even if everyone thinks it sucks, it still gets checked off the list. That, in and of itself, is good enough for me. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
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