Earlier this year, Ben and Sam were looking for an excuse to travel the country, so they decided to tour as a two-piece using the C&L name, with Ben on guitar and vocals, and Sam on electric and upright bass, mandolin, and vocals. They recorded an album of acoustic songs they’d been working on together since the dissolution of the Lido Venice so they’d have something to support on the road. As they were getting ready to leave in June, they began playing with their old friends Matt and Chris and made plans to pursue C&L as a four-piece when they got back from the tour. They arranged to re-record five songs from the acoustic album in full-band mode and combine those with the acoustic versions of five others to create a sort of dual album.
At the beginning of August, after about a month of rehearsing and rearranging songs, the band headed into Jack Younger’s Basement 247 studio in Allston. The recording of the basic tracks went so well that Younger convinced them to record the whole album as a full band. Matt: “Jack was like, ‘It has to be done. I’ll cut you a deal.’ ”
Over the next month and a half, whenever the studio was free and the band’s school and work schedules allowed, they recorded the 10 tracks that became More Songs, often making decisions about arrangements and instrumentation on the fly. They had been playing the album’s opener, “Longboy,” as a twangy, hillbilly rave-up, but it wasn’t working in the studio. Chris suggested a different drumbeat — a straightforward tom-tom-driven stomp: “Jack’s like, ‘Go with that.’ ” So they did and ending up keeping the first take.
Matt: “That was the first time we had ever played that song as it is. The reason it feels kind of loose and disjointed is because it is — we really only had a structural idea of what we were going do, not exactly how we were going to play the song.”
Sam: “It sounds like a bunch of dudes just playing in a basement, playing a song and having fun because that’s what it was.”
Inspired by the music they were collectively devouring at the time (psych-rock, tropicália, ’60s orchestral pop), they also experimented with various instruments, some of which made the final album (singing saw, organ, trumpet) and some of which didn’t (accordion, sitar, trombone, mandolin). Younger, who says he knew he wanted to work with the band after hearing a boombox demo tape, sees this open-mindedness and enthusiasm as their biggest asset. “Young bands have this great sort of idea — not knowing what they can’t do. They’re not jaded at all. They’re just ready to go, ready to make music.”
On the Web
Christians and Lions: http://www.christiansandlions.net/
