We finished up the first batch of drums last week and decided our first instrument after that should be rhythm (rivum for you slangsters) guitar. We made a conscious decision on this record to stay away from too much acoustic guitar as it tends to be a little sonically messy. We wanted a tighter, more focused sound.

As an experiment, we decided that I should play one batch of electric rhythm guitars. Not only would it be a different approach in tone and in style from Chris, but it would be simple enough that George could easily reproduce it live on electric – something he’s been working on.

So, Chris and I sat down tonight to get started. We both felt his Fender Strat was the guitar to use since he’ll be using his Les Paul and his Gibson 355 for most of the record. The Strat is a nice contrast.

We also really wanted a very raw, barely distorted and kinda nasty sound for me. Think Neil Young or Tom Petty or Jeff Tweedy – something that would fit but also make sense for a front person. We got some really great, bright and biting sounds running the Strat through Chris’ Mesa Boogie tube distortion and his Fulltone Full Drive, alternating between the two. As usual, we ran through his 100 watt Boogie combo amp with a Sennheiser mic in front.

We managed to knock off five songs and they really sounded great. Adding rhythm guitars really helped to bring the songs into focus as ROCK songs, not just skeleton outlines of acoustic guitar, bass and drums.

It also re-emphasized just how great the drums are going to sound with the rest of the band. They are SO different from what we’ve done in the past, but the fit in SO well with what we are doing now and the whole thing just makes sense.

I’ve got a couple more to go in this batch before we’ll move on to other stuff and get ready for another batch of drums, but the results this time were really promising.