We got to know Sydney band Bad Pony a little better when out in Singapore this year for Music Matters – with their latest single “Bottles” setting them up for a round of tour dates through November (wrapping up this weekend), there were some exciting times still ahead for the band when we last saw them. As we look to their final shows for the single tour, Bad Pony songwriter Sam Thomlinson takes us behind the scenes of the making of “Bottles”.
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Embarking on a new song can be an epic ordeal and although self producing is one of the most satisfying experiences, it’s also extremely gruelling and taxing especially when every aspect of the release (mixing, producing, artwork etc.) are in your hands.
“Bottles” was a particularly funny one for us, as it wasn’t one of those songs that just stood out as a banger straight away. It had been a process of building on an initial idea that has evolved into a completely different beast over the space of about 12 months. In that time we wrote a couple of other songs that flowed far easier, and have already been released. But that’s another story.
So how did it even start?
Well, it started with a voice memo I sent to Jarred [Young] about a year ago. I was sitting in my practice room, mumbling some broken hearted nonsense over a few chords. I’d like to say that this was extremely well thought out, but it wasn’t. Usually I’ll have an initial idea, start recording and see where it goes. I’ll see if my stream of consciousness comes up with any hooks and then send it to Jarred to tell me if it sucks or has potential. If I get the green light, I keep going. If not, it’s back to the drawing board. Fortunately “Bottles” got the nod of approval, and we started to brainstorm the ideas.
I remember sitting in a hotel room, singing the first verse and chorus to Jarred and explaining where the heart of the lyrics were coming from. It was a pretty incredible moment as I’ve not often been too involved in the lyric writing process before. Obviously, Jarred knew exactly where the sentiment of the song lay as he took those lyrics, reworked them, changed some lines then wrote a second verse and bridge that perfectly captured the ideas of the song.
It’s also important to note that during this time, we would run the song in rehearsal nearly every week, trying to refine parts, make things mesh and build the skeleton of the song. Everyone would work on their own parts and bring their special little pieces to the tune. To be honest, it wasn’t really working and felt like a bit of a stagnant mess.
I think that all changed when we started to demo the song in my home studio. We put down everything we had worked on in the rehearsal room and started to critique our own song; What parts worked, what parts lacked, what flowed, and what didn’t. We knew that there were parts we loved, but there were also holes that needed to be filled.
This is where the experimentation would start. We tried tonnes of different stuff. I would walk home from the station listening to the mix, trying to think of parts to add, drumbeats to change and I would record them with a little explanation like, ‘drumbeat to build into first chorus’, and send to Jarred.
To cut a few months of tinkling out of the story, we finally found a structure and feel for the song that we loved and it was time to start tracking in the studio.
We have always self produced our songs, as our vision for where the song should sit has always been so strong and it’s hard to hand that over to someone else. That being said, It might be nice to collaborate at some stage to see where that might take us.
The process of recording bottles was reasonably simple, especially after all the experimentation had been done over the previous few months. We started with a pretty plastic recording with a lot of synths, fake drums, no reverb and no real ‘production elements’.
The first step was to head to Cron [Van Niekerk]’s home studio to track all the drum parts. Although the song was going to have a lot of synths, we knew we still wanted a big live drum sound. This started with Jarred playing the main drum part of the song.
Cron then triple tracked the opening sequence to get a really big, roomy, live sound, as if a chorus of drummers were playing. The idea was to have this big drum solo beginning that then sunk into a really close, tight, electronic style chorus. From here, I was given the drums to start replacing all the electronic stuff we had from the demos. To be completely honest, this was pretty daunting for me as I had never really mixed live drums for an official release. But at the same time, it was exciting and I’ve definitely learned from the experience.
Next up was the task of revisiting all the synth parts, exploring sounds, trying different things, failing often, but succeeding now and then. This was definitely one of the more fun parts of the recording process. Most of the guitar stuff was pretty easy to get down, as we’d already written it in the rehearsal space.
Vocals were up next. Jarred came around to the studio one afternoon and we started to record the main vocal track. Our usual process is to recorded the entire track in a take, in order to capture the vibe as a whole and hopefully get a few moments of reality as Jarred’s vocal chords being to tire, especially after some of the more screamy, emotive parts. We will then do another couple of full takes and go through them to find our favourite bits, and cut the crap. Jarred also had tonsillitis for the majority of the last tour and that was still hanging around when we tracked “Bottles”, which made the vocals a bit scratchier.
This is when the production started again. A lot of the production side of making bottles happened with demoing. However, once all the parts were there it was obvious that the song needed a sonic direction and sound. I also wanted to make sure there was plenty of little ideas and moments that people would find only after a few listens. I think I was leaning towards a grittier sound than what we’re used to making to capture the gritty nature of the lyrics. I’d been listening to some of Steve Schram’s work with bands like Wharves and Swim Season and really loving it, so I guess a lot of that crept into the song.
Eventually we reached a point where the song was practically finished and with a lot of mixing down and sending to the band for reviews we were ready for release.
“Bottles” is a song close to my heart. It’s about love but also about being young and living a life that revolves around music, late nights and alcohol. And how sometimes, these passions collide beautifully but also tragically.
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Catch Bad Pony at the Republic Bar in Hobart on November 18th and at The Evelyn Hotel in Melbourne on November 19th! Follow them on Facebook HERE.
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