We signed our Warner Bros. agreement on June 3, 2012. The next morning we were in the basement of Jay Joyce’s West Nashville house, starting the record that would become The Wild Feathers.
Jay worked fast and told the truth plainly. When our four-part harmonies got loose, he stopped the session and sent us home. We returned the next day and built them correctly. That was the difference between performing a song and constructing one.
The room was full of tools with histories. I played ‘Marie’ on an old Supro resonator that Jay said Derek Trucks had used on Songlines. Most of my guitar parts went through a James Trussart metal Telecaster, an old Fender Bassman, a Big Muff, and a Memory Man. Those pieces became much of the first album’s guitar sound.
Fred Eltringham played drums before we had a permanent drummer. On some songs he shook a red toolbox of loose metal parts for percussion. I improvised many of the solos as the tape rolled, so the record preserves the sound of a player finding the part in real time.
At the end of ‘The Ceiling,’ Jay had me take my hands off the guitar. Feedback began building through the monitors. He grabbed my shoulders and moved me until the note opened into the howl that closes the track.
The sessions felt handmade: people in a basement, working quickly, using whatever produced the right sound. Ben Dumas joined the band that November. We gave him a CD at The 5 Spot; he came to Joel’s already knowing the songs, sat down at the drums, and became our drummer.