Hey, all you MD readers, Lynn Williams here, drummer for DICK50. I’m always interested to know how bands get together, and just how the right group of people make it “a band.” It seems to me that you know you have the right group of people when you don’t have to talk so much about what you’re going to play, you just start playing and a wonderful thing happens. Sometimes it may take a while for all the players to be comfortable with each other, and other times it happens from the very first note.

The four of us in DICK50 have been working together in different musical situations, recording and playing live, for ten-plus years. The last few years we’ve been working with Delbert McClinton, playing live and on all his studio stuff. During soundchecks we would come up with these great song ideas and of course nobody could remember the idea later. So the solution was to go into the studio and just start jamming like we did during soundcheck. The result is our first CD, LateShow.

The recording process on this CD was a bit unusual. We decided that we would record the rhythm tracks with everyone in the same room—amps, drums, keys—everything all together. The four-piece drumkit was set up in a corner of the room with two mics—one on the kick drum and one placed between the snare and first tom. There was a small bass amp behind me, with a guitar amp to my right and keyboard amp to my left, with one mic on each amp. We also had two room mics coming out of the upstairs loft, about twelve feet above us. We recorded everything until we came up with an idea that we all liked. Then we would work up the arrangement, then record that until we all got it right. There was no fixing of the basic tracks; we all had to play the song down correct at the same time. After the basic tracks were done, we overdubbed vocals, guitar solos, and a few other things. Advertisement

We were all involved in the writing, recording, and production of the project. Each day that we got together we would write and record one song. We would go in the studio with a clean slate and at the end of the day have a song completed and recorded. I’m very happy with how it turned out.

We are still Delbert McClinton’s band, and we’ll be doing some opening slots for Delbert and some shows on our own. You can check us out at the links below.

As far as gear, a big “thank you” to Paiste cymbals, Remo heads, Vic Firth sticks, and Pearl drums. I also want to mention that we were in Switzerland a few weeks ago and I had the privilege to take a tour of the Paiste factory—a fantastic experience, it was great to see how it’s all done. Thank you, Roger, for showing us around. Love those big hats.

Got to go for now, so, see you down the road. Visit us at www.dick50.com and come see us at a Delbert McClinton show. Check out tour dates at www.delbert.com.