Nicoll, Jake - Tour EP

Tracks

		Track Name	Length
	1	For Years Now
	2	The Good and the Bad
	3	Sleepless In Berlin
	4	Words
	5	Show It To Me
	6	Conversations In Lichtenstein
	7	Time Alone
	8	I Think I Know What I Do Not Know
	9	Deggingen

Photos

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Information/Write-up

Jake Nicoll is a busy guy. If he’s not touring as the drummer for bands like The Burning Hell or 2011 Atlantis Prize-winners All The Wiles, he can be found helping with his other friends’ recording projects… or working on his own music. This summer while touring Europe with The Burning Hell, Jake recorded an EP — appropriately titled Tour EP — which he is releasing this Thursday (November 22) at The Ship along with Run to the Rocks, The Lurks, and his sister’s new band Ilia Nicoll & The Hot Toddies.

I recently got in touch with Jake to ask him a few questions about the EP.

So you recorded this while touring Europe this summer. How did you manage to find the time and space to do that?
Surprisingly enough, there’s a lot of downtime when on tour. After you’ve arrived at the new venue and unpacked, there is usually a good amount of time before it is time to eat or sound check, then even more time before playing. Because the schedule is usually somewhat vague…you are waiting for the sound guy to get there, or you are waiting for other bands to check first… there is a lot of empty time in which you can’t really go that far from the venue. This was when I wrote a lot of the songs.

It’s hard to generalize about where I recorded the songs because almost every part was recorded in a unique place. A few of the recordings were done backstage, borrowing the band’s gear, and a few songs were constructed entirely in hotel rooms. A significant part of one song was constructed in the van while driving on the autobahn. Another was recorded in the guest room of a house in a quaint town in southern Germany.

A lot of the record was written and recorded during our month long stay in Berlin. The Burning Hell had booked a studio in Berlin for three weeks, and I was lucky enough to spend a few evenings there recording drums and piano. I also used the hallway behind the studio for a few vocal takes, because the reverb in there was great.
Some was also recorded at my sister’s place in Waterloo, during my first week back from Europe, and one song was recorded live at my house in St. John’s.

What did you use to record the EP?
I used a Zoom H4n (a stereo handheld recorder), a laptop running REAPER, and an SM58 that I borrowed from Nick, our bass player. The heart of the set up really was the Zoom, and I could bore you by describing all the sneaky ways to use it to its full potential, but instead I’ll just say that it is a pretty versatile little machine if you have the patience to think about it. We are living in the future, seriously.

Did you find yourself drawing inspiration for songs from the people, events and places you encountered on tour?
Most of the songs are about being on tour in some way, which I don’t think was entirely intentional, it was just what was on my mind. I think the songwriting styles of some of my fellow travelers rubbed off on me here and there. I also spent some time interviewing friends I met along the way, and one of those interviews is part of a song on the record. The other interviews will be part of another project I have been working on.

You said the EP ended up sounding more like a mixtape. How so?
When I first showed the EP to a friend of mine, he said it sounded like a mixtape, and I think that’s pretty accurate. Partly it is because it was recorded in so many different places, so the vocals on one track sound pretty different than on others. But the main reason, I think, is that the songs are just pretty different from each other, and that’s because I wasn’t too discriminating. Most of the songs I wrote ended up on the album, and there was no attempt at weeding songs out for consistency. This is part of my justification for calling it an EP even though it pretty much the length of a regular album. The whole project was an experiment.

Did any of your friends make cameos or contributions to the record?
After coming back home I recorded some back up vocals with Billy, Ilia and Noah, as well as some violin and accordion. But pretty much everything I recorded in Europe was done by myself. I kind of kept the project as a secret from the rest the band, so most of the songs will be new to them. One of my main justifications for making the EP in the first place was to have an activity that would give me a reason for spending time on my own, which is a surprisingly important thing when traveling with a small group of people for three months.

I also loved your RPM albums this year Heat Lamp/Tape Love. Do you plan to take the Challenge again this year?
I haven’t given much thought to the RPM challenge yet. There is talk of a few collaborations… but who knows?

-The Scope

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